Underneath my yellow skin

Nanowhatmo? Part two

I want to write more. I know that’s a very generic and broad statement to make, but it’s where I’m at right now.  I write my one post a day for this blog, but I have given up on my fiction writing completely.I am so frustrated that it’s not as effortless as it used to be. I did try for NaNoWriMo not last year but the year before. I got the 50,000 words done, but it just did not go where I wanted it to go.

I have a fairly detailed idea for a trilogy that I shaped and remodeled in the past few years. Every time I try to write it, though, it just comes out flat. When I write something good, the words sparkle and almost jump off the page. I like to say that I am not creating the stories, but am merely the conduit that allows the stories to flow.

In the last post, I wrote about the dysfunction in my family. How is that related to my writing? Well, if I want to write my memoir (which is one of my ideas), I have to delve into my family dysfunction because otherwise, the reader will not have the right context for when I talk about my medical crisis.

I firmly believe that things are interconnected. What happened to me in my childhood has an effect on how I reacted to my medical crisis. I don’t think this is controversial, but not everyone agrees with me. Or rather, not everyone sees it.

Side note: I just had a really big reminder in the RKG Discord as to how ‘normal’ people are really not into the idea that maybe someone else can have an experience that is outside what they believe is possible. And it reminded me that as accepting and welcoming as the community is in certain ways, in otther ways, they are just as limited as society in general. It’s one reason I rarely talk about my medical crisis to the gen pop. It sounds ludicrous when I say it out loud or type it out.

I am literally the only person I know who has gone through what I did. You know how people say that no one is unique (with individual experiences)? Well, it’s not true. I did so much research, and I could not find anyone else like me. I can’t tell you how many medical people have called me a miracle. In fact, when I was in the hospital, it was the first thing most people I ran into said when they heard my whole story.


There are people who have survived a cardiac arrest, of course. And a stroke. And walking (non-Covid-related) pneumonia. But not all of them within twenty minutes (plus another cardiac arrest). Whenever I type it out, a sense of surrealness comes over me. I should not be alive. I should not be here. I should not have woken up from my coma. Which only lasted a week, by the way. But it was so bad, my medical team had said to my brother that he should think about pulling the plug.

When I woke up, I was…fine. I mean, tired as fuck, obviously. Weak, drugged to the gills, and freaked out of my mind, sure. They gave me a battery of tests over the next few days, and I passed every single one with flying colors. Everything ranged from fine to great. Memory, talking, grooming, small chores (like brushing my teeth), and walking. The last one was the big one, of course.

I will never forget it. The physical therapist (PT) came to my room with a walker in front of her. She told me she was there to see what I could and could not do when it came to walking. She gave me a few tips as I slowly pulled myself up out of my bed for the first time in nearly two weeks. I was weak and wobbly, of course. She said I could use the walker, but she urged me not to if I did not need it. I took my first step, then the next, while she gave me a few tips. They were exactly backwards as to what my Taiji teacher had taught me. I made the mistake of mentioning that, and the PT was not pleased. I realized that my goal was to get the fuck out of there as soon as possible, so I made the deliberate decision to do what she wanted. I knew my Taiji teacher would approve because Taiji was about doing what was easiest and most effective for the situation.

Yes, I was thinknig about Taiji while drugged out of my mind. Taiji is core to who I am. I don’t have the same relationship to it as my teacher does (it’s her whole life), but it’s important to me. It’s integral to who I am. I have said that the reason I survived was luck, love, and Taiji. It’s true. I don’t think I would have made it without Taiji (or luck or love). Or my medical team, of course.

I walked slowly down the hallway to the end of the corridor. Then, I went up the half flight of stairs before slowly coming back down. I sat down in a chair in the little lobby for five minutes before walking back to my room. Slow, yes, but completely under my own power. Oh, wait. I had gotten up and moved to a chair a few times before this. Just to get the circulation going. Maybe a day or two before this day.

The next day, the PT came again. She had the walker again, and again, I did not need it. I slowly walked down the hallway, and she had nothing to say to me. When we got back to my room, she said that I was allowed to walk wherever I wanted whenever I wanted, and she encouraged me to do the same route we just did twice a day. I said that I was on lockdown, so that wouldn’t be possible. One of the nurses had put me on lockdown because I kept trying to get up on my own. Therefore, anytime I moved, an alarm would beep.

The PC fiddled with her phone and said I was free of all restrictions. I could go anywhere I wanted. It wasn’t until much later that I realized the first part probably wasn’t true (being put on a lockdown, I mean). There was so much that I thought I had experienced that I realized in retrospect didn’t actually happen.

With that teaser, I’ll end this post and let it go until the next one.

 

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