Tag: coma | A Banana Peeled

A whisper in the night

Posted on November 22, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

When I first came home from the hospital, I thought about my experience all the time. Well, maybe not all the time, literally, but it was always in the back of my mind. I would muse about what happened, but rarely about why it happened. I marveled that I survived pretty much intact, but as I told the hospital chaplain, why shouldn’t it happen to me?

I’ve always found it strange when people were floored when bad things happened to them. For example, when 9/11 happened, there were so many people saying, “I can’t believe this happened in America.” I get it on an intellectual level. In my lifetime up to that point, there hadn’t been any attacks on American soil. We have been lulled to believe that we are untouchable.

But, anyone who was following the situation to any degree could see something of the sort happening. I’m not pretending that I was precog and predicted an attack in NY. I wasn’t and I didn’t. But I am also not going to pretend that I was shocked that it happened. Grieved, yes. Appalled, yes. But shocked? Nope.

What I was shocked about and then disheartened was the jingoistic reaction by our government after the initial attack. We had the goodwill of the entire world–and we squandered it.

I’m a weirdo, though. I used to call myself a pessimist and/or a cynic because I was always seeing the dark side of things. Or rather, I was always pointing out something that other people hadn’t seen in a situation.

That’s right. I’m the ‘well, actually’ person in the flesh.

When I was in my mid-twenties, I was telling a friend of mine that I was a cynic/pessimist. He took a long look at me and said, “Minna. You’re an optimist.” Cue the outrage and the sputtering. Me , an optimist?!? How dare he! I was so pissed off, I wanted to tell him off. But, I decided to ask him what he meant by that. I was no Pollyanna who only saw the bright side to everything. How very DARE he????

Happy re-birthday to me!

Posted on September 4, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

It’s my re-birthday today. It’ll be yesterday by the time this is posted–or maybe not. I may just post it immediately after I finish. Or not at all. It’s my re-birthday, and I’ll not post if I want to. Or don’t. Whichever.

I am so graceful to still be alive. It’s trite, but true that the specter of death can make you appreciate what you have. I will admit that a year later, I am not as conscious every minute about these being my bonus days as I was in the months following my getting out of the hospital.

I would actually say this is one of the best things that ever happened to me. I can say that with the full knowledge of hindsight. I would not have said that when I woke up or the first week after I was unconscious, I was bewildered, confused, and ready to fight whomever needed fighting. I wasn’t sure who needed fighting, but I knew someone did.

I remember that I was not one second and the next second, I was. I sat up with a start and had no idea what the hell was happening. The doctors had to explain it to me, and it took a hot second for me to understand what was actually going on.

Here’s the thing. I’ve been so incredibly lucky. I should be dead. I was dead. Twice I died. Then I woke up. I was told that it would be months if not years to get me back to normal, if that ever happened. I recently watched a video of a doctor explaining the side effects of a stroke. He was saying you had to forget normal and celebrate each step you make. It was very much, “Life as you know it is over and you better resign yourself to tough times for the rest of your life.”

What of the afterlife?

Posted on January 5, 2022 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

My mom sent me a video of an American neurosurgeon who got encephalitis and was in a coma for two months. He emerged from it with no knowledge of this world, but quickly regained it over the next few days. In the video, he describes how he was in a dark place and then there was a light and a pretty brunette lady telling him he was loved. He said that1’s when he knew there was a loving personal god and that was the message he needed to take back into the world. He’s written two books about his experience and firmly believes in free will. He thinks patients have the ability to direct their own healing.

Which, I must say, is utter bullshit. In my own NDE (near-death experience), I went from simply not being to being in one violent moment. No light. No angelic figure telling me how loved I am. Nothing. Just me opening my eyes with a gasp and panicking at what the fuck was going on. I was scared, angry, and ready to fight whomever needed to be fought. There was no peace and love and all that.

I will say that in the first few halcyon days of being drugged to the gills, I was overflowing with love. I was grateful to be alive and was convinced that it was the support and love from everyone around me that had carried me through. I have said since the beginning that three things helped me through–love, Taiji, and luck. I do believe that the collective is stronger than each individual part. I do believe there is something bigger than us. I don’t believe that’s a specific God with a capital G, however. In addition, I firmly reject the notion that somehow, I deserved to come back more than someone else. This is a particularly American point of view–that we deserve all the good things that happen to us (and , conversely, that we don’t deserve bad things). It’s toxic positivity, which is very American. In addition, it’s confirmation bias. To put it bluntly, people who died from their medical trauma can’t exactly object to what he’s saying, can they?

I’m not dissing his experience. If that’s what comforts him and gets him through, then so be it. If he wants to believe in heaven and pretty angel ladies, that’s his prerogative. That wasn’t my experience, however, and that’s just as valid as his. I mean, if we’re putting such weight on near-death experiences that we don’t have to quantify them at all. What did I learn from mine? That there is nothing other than this life. Or rather, there is love that is bigger than any one of us. We are powerful as a collective. There is a spirit/energy out there that is undefinable, that encompasses us all. But God with a capable G? I’m not as sure about that.

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