When I was in the hospital, so many of people on my medical team had to comment as to how I was a miracle. When I got out of the hospital, any time I talked to medical personnel, the phrase, “You’re a miracle!” was pretty inevitable. One of the nurse aides who came to my house once a week to check on me had to take a basic inventory for me because she couldn’t find it on her app. I told her what happened to me and she started ticking things off on her chest list. I was half-listening when I heard, “And you had heart surgery.” Wait, what? No. I hastened to correct her that I hadn’t had any surgery at all, and she set down her phone so she could look at me in shock. She placed a hand on my arm and said, “You are literally a walking miracle.”
I was talking to my brother last night about this and I still couldn’t quite grasp what had happened to me. He said, “You are incredibly lucky to be alive. You should be dead.” Which, yes, it’s true, but how do you really internalize it? I call my life now my bonus days and September 3rd is my re-birthday. I am much better psychologically since that day than I’ve ever been. I’m cute AF and my body is STRONK. The anxiety that used to flow through my brain has cut down by three quarters. My depression is almost gone. I get eight hours of sleep a night rather than 6 1/2, and I may wake up once rather than three or four times, but I have also slept through the night as well. More often than not, I sleep a solid eight hours, which is unheard of for me.
I started resenting being told I was a miracle. I understood why everyone thought that, but I was still just me. I still had to live my life and go on with it. My mom got it into her head that I had to write a screenplay and get my life made into a movie because it would be so inspiring for other people. Now, I’m not objecting to having my life be a movie, but something about the way she said it rubbed me the wrong way. Like she was fetishizing what happened to me, which made me uneasy. I should have just smiled and nodded (which is what I tell myself every time I talk to my parents), but it’s hard not to want to straighten the record when talking to her. I want to be seen for who I am–not just as a symbol.
Besides, I don’t see how I’m an inspiration. Someone who is a quadriplegic and works hard so they can walk again? That’s inspiring. Or someone who is homeless because they’re gay and their family didn’t want them any longer and managed to become the president of their own nonprofit? 100% inspirational. I can see finding something someone did inspiring. But, I didn’t do anything. I’m not being falsely modest here. You know what I did? I called 9-1-1 and unlocked the front door. That’s the extent of my involvement. I spent the next week unconscious and was high as balls when I woke up. I was scared, discombobulated, and ready to fight someone. I had no idea who, but I was sure someone needed fighting. Then I spent the next few days getting tested and regaining my strength before I was released a week after I woke up. I went home and resumed my life.
That’s it. There was nothing miraculous about what I did. I think that’s my biggest gripe with being told I’m miraculous/inspiration–I didn’t do anything to earn it. So, again, I get why my story is miraculous and why it might be inspirational to some people. But, for me, inspiration means there’s something I can take away from a story and do myself. What can someone take from my story? Have walking non-COVID-related pneumonia, two cardiac arrests, and a stroke? Hope you don’t suffer any side effects from all of the above? Not losing any ability to talk, walk, or type? None of that is actionable!
I would love t o be able to tell people that so much of what we worry about on a daily basis is just meaningless. I would especially like to tell women that your body is fucking amazing and you are beautiful just as you are. But, I know how that sounds–facile and flippant. Also Pollyannaish. And we don’t live in a vacuum, sadly. We lived in a society that does judge fat people harshly, especially women. But what if we all just did not give a shit? If we laughed in the face of fatphobia (whenever it’s safe to do so)?
Side Note But Related: I have terrible taste in music. I say this loudly and proudly. I have some great taste in music, too, but a lot of is terrible. As I said on Twitter, I like Lizzo, Missy Elliott, Bon Jovi, One Direction, Vienna Teng, and Rachmaninoff. I would add White Lion, Dixie Chicks, Sugarland, and a whole bunch of bad pop music to that. It really throws people off when they tell me I have terrible taste in music and I cheerfully agree. It’s supposed to be cut direct that wounds me terribly. But I embrace it, which takes the winds out of their sails.
I wish we could do the same with fatphobia. I call myself fat because I am. I use it as a descriptor, and it’s amazing (and amusing) how people rush to “assure” me that I’m not fat–because it’s such a terrible thing to be. My parents fall into this category, by the way. They have nagged me about my weight and it started with my mother putting me on a diet when I was seven.
It got so bad, I had to tell them about twenty years ago that they were not allowed to mention my weight, not even under the guise of ‘We’re worried about your health’, which, by the way, is bullshit. My mom had nothing to say in support when I was struggling with anorexia/bulimia, so it’s clear that her concern was not health-related. By the way, in a amusing twist of irony, the only comment she did make during that time was how my waist was smaller than hers in a jealous tone.
Anyway!
I’m not an inspiration. I just don’t see how I can be. Like I said, it’s not as if I can tell people to do what I did. I can tell them the conclusions I reached and how they’ve changed my life, but that’s rather anodyne. “Don’t worry about anything and just appreciate life.” And it’s not even true. I still have worries. I still have anxious thoughts. I still have times when I get pissed at stupid things. I’m no saint, and I don’t pretend to be.
Having said all that, I do want to get my story out there because I do think it can touch many people. At the very least, it’s fascinating because it so rarely happens. When I was Googling situations such as mine, it was hard because, well, it just doesn’t happen. There aren’t great stats for what happens with people post cardiac arrests because, to put it bluntly, the vast majority of people who have them die. I honestly could not find anything solid on someone who survived two cardiac arrests and a stroke. In twenty minutes! (Not to say anything about it all being kicked off by the walking non-COVID-related pneumonia.) A brain that goes without oxygen for five minutes starts getting brain damage. Ten minutes and you’re almost guaranteed to die. Fifteen minutes? It’s fundamentally impossible to survive.
I know my brain was without oxygen for some amount of time. I was incredibly lucky that I managed to dial 9-1-1 (which I can’t stress enough is not something I would do lightly) and unlock the front door before collapsing in the front hallway. I woke up a week later and then left the hospital a week after that.
I don’t mind being told I’m a miracle (though I prefer people saying that what happened to me is miraculous, but that’s just a personal preference, but I really don’t get how I’m an inspiration. “Look at you living with your bad self!” I’m sitting on my couch with a faux fur throw over my legs, typing on my mechanical keyboard as I watch a YouTube video. I’m about to go make some rice so I can have my usual lunch–rice and chicken burrito with steam veg, salsa, and olives. And cheeze. Then I’ll play some Elden Ring before calling it a day.
I don’t know what’s inspirational about that, but I’m sure there’s something someone can come up with. I’ll have to leave this here.