Six months ago was the worst night of my life. One that will be etched in my brain forever, even though I was unconscious when it happened, I’ll never forget the retelling of it by my brother. Nor the moment when I opened my eyes, angry, confused, and afraid. I was ready to fight whatever needed fighting–and I was sure that someone did, indeed, need fighting.
I spent two weeks in the hospital, one week unconscious and another conscious. That is really what changed my life–the second week, I mean. You could argue that the cluster of medical traumas changed my life; you would not be wrong. But I was not awake for that and have no memory of it so I can’t really speak to it. All I know about that comes from my brother, which is a strange feeling. The fact that there’s a whole week of my life missing is a strange feeling, as a matter of fact. For the first few weeks I was out of the hospital, I was obsessed with that week and the fact that I would never know what really happened to me. I mean, I know the basics–walking non-COVID-related pneumonia, two cardiac arrests, and a stroke–but I don’t know the details. It really bothered me for a couple of weeks because, well, I think that’s normal,, but also because I have a mania in my need to know. I grew up with two unreliable narrators as parents so it’s my tendency to want to have everything in writing. The fact that all this happened to me without me even knowing about it doesn’t sit well. At all. Reading the journal entries my brother wrote on the Caring Bridge website is so weird. They’re about me, but I cannot relate to them at all. When he talks about me being on ice to protect my internal organs, it feels as if he’s talking about someone else.
Side Note: I have said this before, but I’ll say it again. I am so fucking lucky that I was taken to Regions Hospital and that they had an open bed. They are the leading heart center in Minnesota and recognized nationally for it. Therapeutic Hypothermia (or Targeted Temperature Management) is not a universally-accepted treatment for cardiac arrest so I’m lucky that Regions is one that does it. They lowered my temperature to protect my brain and lungs and then gradually increased the temps until I was back to normal. My brother wrote that I was fighting the breathing tube when they tried to raise my temperature.
Late in the week of my unconsciousness, the doctors were preparing to talk to my brother about what he wanted to do re: the breathing machine. Then, I woke up and that became a moot subject, thankfully. I am thankful that my brother was spared that decision because no one should have to make that weighty of a choice. He held it all down during the actual crisis so not having to make that particular decision is a small mercy.
Side Note to the side note: My brother is my hero. He did everything that needed to be done during that time without complaint. He’s not big on talking about emotions, but if you ask him to do something, he’s all over it. My car won’t start on the coldest day in winter? He’s there in twenty minutes and getting it to work in five. The heater is being finicky? He knows what to do to fix it. When I came home from the hospital, he asked the nurses for all the things I’d need to make it easier on me. That included railings in the shower and a shower chair (my favorite thing!), a commode in case I couldn’t make it to the bathroom in time, and a walker. He bought or put together/installed all of that in two or three days. He did it without complaint and he did it with terrifying efficiency. My favorite story is how he was talking with my care team about what was going on. The social workers asked him how he was doing and he said fine. They tried to prod gently about his state of mind because that’s their job. They wanted to make sure he was taking care of himself–which I get. He brushed them off, saying he was fine. He added, “If she dies, she dies. There’s nothing I can do about that.”
I burst into laughter because I could imagine the look on their faces when he made that utterance. My brother is on the spectrum and not big on feelings. I’m used to it and in this case, I appreciated it because he got shit done. I also knew what he meant by it. He would have been sad about it, but that wouldn’t get anything done. He’s a practical man who copes by doing things. He doesn’t want to talk about feelings not because he’s a jerk but because they just aren’t that important to him. When he switched careers from IT to being a realtor many moons ago, he wanted me to teach him how to navigate social interactions. He knew that was an important part of the job and he knew that he was lacking in that area. I can still remember outlining to him several things that were important in social interactions and him confidently repeating each one with the implication that he could do it easily. I tried to impart on him that it wasn’t that easy to change ingrained behaviors, but he brushed me off. Years later, he’s doing much better, but it wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be.
It’s unsettling to think about my experience. It’s the most important thing that has happened to me in my life and yet, it doesn’t change anything about my day-to-day experience. I’m sitting at my desktop, typing away on my mechanical keyboard. I have a mostly empty cup of coffee in front of me and my Xbox controller to the right of me. That’s all new because I just got my new desktop, but I’m doing the same things I would have been doing before I landed in the hospital. I’m writing my daily post. I’ll be doing work for my brother. I’ll be playing a shit-ton of Elden Ring-yes, that’s new, but it’s not related to the medical trauma. So everything is the same and everything has changed. Both of these things are true at the same time.
I’m stronger than I was before, doing more Taiji weapons every day. I added stretches to keep me limber and I do one section of the Solo Form every day as well. I need to re-teach myself the left side of the Saber Form and then teach myself the left side to the Double Saber Form. My teacher is showing me the last row of the Cane Form, which means I’m so close to being done. I want to teach myself the Fan Form next, but I can’t do all this at one time. I want to, but it wouldn’t be best learning practices.
I have said that I consider these my bonus days; I can’t wait to see what comes next.