Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: miracle

Luck is sometimes on my side

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In yesterday’s post, I talked about luck at the DMV. It was a silly post, but there was an underpinning of seriousness in it. If I had gotten the by-the-book person, I might not have gotten my license renewed. I don’t drive much, but I do drive–and I would not be comfortable driving without a license. I thought I was going to get that person (I was counting0, but I had neglected to factor in the different categories.

I was saying in my head, “Please don’t give me that person” over and over again. I was watching like a hawk, though I don’t know why. There was nothing I could do if I ended up at their station. I heaved a sigh of relief when I ended up with one of the more generous people, and I knew what to do when I had to take my eye test.

I rattled off the letters as quickly and confidently as I could. I did not pause or stutter, and then I was able to see the flashing lights. Did I get all the letters right? I don’t know. They were fuzzy, but I could see them fairly clearly. I just had difficulty knowing if it was, say a capital Q or a capital O. Which, let’s be real. There are very few Qs on a sign.

This is my biggest gripe with the eye test. Signs are not that small. I can read road signs perfectly. Wait. Let me say that I can read font on a computer fairly fine, too. It’s just something about the eye test letters that fuck up my brain. I think it might be in part because when I’m reading, I don’t look at each letter. So it doesn’t matter if the individual letters are fuzzy or not.

I’ve been having a rough time with my sleep lately. It’s Daylight Savings, but it’s also a personal tragedy that I still don’t want to talk about. I have not had this bad of sleep since before my medical crisis–which was two-and-a-half years ago. I’m struggling with it because I got used to sleeping like a normal person. This does not feel good, I’ll tell you that much.

My birthday is tomorrow. My real birthday, I mean. I don’t really care about it. I never have, but I am neutral about it now. I considered September 3rd to be my re-birthday, which is much more important to me. I have some lingering negativity over my actual birthday and would prefer just to let it slip by with no notice.

I have to pretend to care for my parents. Back in my twenties, I used to tell my mother I didn’t care about my birthday. Which was true, but it was exactly the wrong thing to say to her. Because then she started crying and saying it (along with my brother’s birth) had been the most important day of her life. Once again, it was all about her. She did not care about me as a person, but just what my birth meant to her.


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I’m no one’s inspiration

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I am not anyone’s inspiration p0rn. Abbreviated inspo p0rn, apparently, which I appreciate. I was reading an Ask A Manager post about disability and the workplace, and it’s really frustrating how even the most woke of women (the vast majority of her commentariat are female-presenting people) felt the need to say that the actions of the company were well-intended before going on with their comment. It became almost comical because it was a compunction to note that the company was well-meaning.

Who the fuck cares? Intent is not magic and the knee-jerk reaction shows how little we value people with disabilities. But, the commenters said, it’s would be worse if they meant to be malicious! Would it really, though? The end result is the same. In fact, in some ways, the fact that they were trying to be nice, but missed the mark by so much is almost worse because as the comments showed, there was not an insignificant portion of people who feel that the OP should have been grateful, regardless of the delivery.

There was one commenter who was oddly insistent that the OP needed to apologize or at least treat her coworkers/manager with kids gloves because they (the manager/coworkers) had to be crushed that their ‘good intentions’ landed so flatly. The commenter said that she would have been devastated if that happened to her and the other person reacted so poorly (in her eyes). Which, while not helpful, does underscore the point that there are people who only care about their own feelings and their own intentions.

Several people tried to argue with this commenter, but she was not swayed. The feelings of the manager and coworkers were more important than the feelings of the person aggrieved! And to be clear, the actions of the coworkers/manager were egregious.

Side Note: The golden rule is a bad rule. Treating others as you would want to be treated is part of the problem in this case. The platinum rule (which was mentioned in the comments) is better. Treat others as THEY want to be treated. And in this case, it was so simple. They only had to ask her what she wanted. Instead, they did it all behind her back (including making a cartoon caricature of her to place on the handicapped sign in the parking lot!!!!) and made a big display of it, expecting her to be grateful.

There are so many things wrong with what they did, it’s hard to enumerate them all. And in the end, their intentions don’t matter because they did it all without her input. There’s a phrase for any minority group that goes something like ‘nothing about us without us’. It’s paternalistic to decide something for someone else without asking them what they want.

In my case, I have gone round and round about being inspo p0rn because of what happened to me seven months ago. I understand that it’s highly-unusual. In fact, I can comfortably use the word ‘miracle’ to describe it. I defied death–twice. I was hit with walking pneumonia, two cardiac arrests, and a stroke within twenty minutes. I should be dead. I’ve accepted that. The fact that I’m not dead IS a miracle. I accept that as well.


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I’m not a saint

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“You are a literal walking miracle.” That was what the nurse said when she came to do my weekly at-home checkup after I left the hospital.  I understood what she was trying to say, and I came up against it again and again every time I met with a medical person–or just talked to them about it. I get it; I really do. They have to deal with unhappy cases all day long, especially in the ICU. There aren’t many people walking out of there on their own power, sadly. I had a nurse from the ICU who had sat with me while I was unconscious come down to the PCU (Progressive Care Unit) while I was awake so she could talk to me. She had tears in her eyes as she recounted sitting with me while I was unconscious. She said she had to come talk to me while I was awake, which I didn’t mind.

At a certain point, though, I started resenting being called a miracle. It doesn’t see the totality of me, which, again, I understand why my medical team would be focused on it. But it made me feel like that was the end of my story–not the beginning. If what happened to me was a movie, it would end with me waking up to a big swell of music. Then, credits would roll and everyone would go home.

In reality, that’s just the beginning. I’m still alive, living my life. I still have to navigate how to go on when something so monumental had happened to me. How do I bring it up when I meet someone new, for example? I don’t see it as first date information. “Hi, my name is Minna. I do Taiji weapons, video games, and, oh yeah, I died twice last year. You?”

K insists that it’s my life so I get to decide when to bring it up. That’s true, but at the same time, it’s not something that you come across on the regular. In fact, if someone said that to me out of the blue, I’m not sure how I’d react. If it hadn’t happened to me, I mean.


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The last year of my life

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As 2021 comes to a close, I can’t stop thinking again about how I should not be alive. I died–twice–and came back to life–twice! So much happened to me that I can’t remember and perhaps my favorite exchange of the year is one that was told to me in retrospect. It  was when I saw my heart doc for the second time outside the hospital. He mentioned again that I had cracked him up when we talked in the hospital. I had no memory of that and asked him about it. To back up a second, the first time we met outside the hospital, I told him I was pleased to meet him. He laughed and said he had met me in the hospital after I woke up. I apologized immediately for anything I might have said to offended him. He laughed and said I had cracked him up. I was intrigued, but I let it go because I was too drugged up at that point to go further into it.

The second time I saw him, which was a week ago, he mentioned it again. I was intrigued and more  in control of my brain, so I asked him about it. Actually, we were talking about how quickly and unexpectedly I had woken up. He had been gone for a day or so while I was under. The prognosis was dire. When he came back, I was awake and talking. He said that when he went in to talk to me, he did what he always did. He recapped what happened to me because he found that to be helpful when he talked to his patients–reiterating what they had experienced every time he talked to them because of memory issues.

He was saying, “So you had pneumonia which led to two cardiac arrests and a stroke.” I listened to his renumeration before saying, “So I died?” He said yes. Apparently, I looked at him and then said, “That’s so fucking cool!” That’s what cracked him up and I laughed when he retold it because it sounded exactly like me.

One thing that has pleased me during this whole ordeal is that I’ve kept my sense of humor. My brother joked that maybe the brain damage made me funnier, which made me laugh when I read it in the Caring Bridge. I never lost my sense of humor during my ordeal because that’s how I deal with bad situations. I tend to see the dark side of things and I put an even darker spin on things, but in a funny way. The fact that I died was not something to shy away from, but to embrace and explore. I mean, I was fucking alive–that was all that  mattered, right?


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An ordinary life

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Before I landed in the hospital, I had a pretty boring. life. We’re putting aside the pandemic because that wreaked havoc on everyone. I will say that it affected me less than it did many people because I had worked from home before the pandemic and spent 90% of my time alone, anyway. I ordered food from Amazon, attended Zoom Taiji classes, and only went out once a month to get my meds. In other words, my life wasn’t that much different than pre-pandemic, except for levels of anxiety.

You hear about people who did all sorts of amazing things during the pandemic. Learned a new trade or craft, for example. Making sourdough bread seemed to be a big deal for a hot minute. There was so much crap about improving yourself and what the fuck ever. In the middle of a pandemic, most people were just trying not to lose their shit. But, it’s the American mentality to think you have to make something out of nothing, even during a pandemic.

I hate the saying, “That  which does not kill you makes you stronger.” It’s saying that going through tough times is actually good for you. I’m not arguing about the veracity of the statement, but more about the smug tone in which it is usually said. Also ,the strident ignoring of the terrible thing that the person went through to get to the point of being stronger. Also, not every thing has to be a teachable moment, but that’s a lesser point.

K and I were once in a bar and discussing this very saying. It was probably 25 years ago, but I still haven’t forgotten the conversation. I was grousing about this saying for whatever reason. Intellectually, I know it’s just twaddle and that I should ignore it. For whatever reason, however, whenever I hear it, I want to rake my eyes out.

I grumbled that it’s such bullshit and puts the burden on the victim to be the better person. Which is abusive in my eyes. And it’s toxic positivity by denying that something awful has happened. I know it doesn’t have to be that way, but that’s usually what it ends up being.

We kicked the saying around a bit. I came up with, “That which does not kill you does not kill you.” I thought it was better, but it still didn’t express exactly what I meant. It was clunky and skirted around the point. We chewed it over a bit longer and K came up with, “That which does not kill you still fucking sucks.” “Perfect!” said I. And lo, it was done. I still use that saying because it expresses my feeling succinctly.


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The magic in the mundane

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I have written at length about the miracle that happened to me and how I’ve started to resent the word, ‘miracle’. Today, I want to talk about the mundane as it pertains to said miracle. The first week I was awake, I wasn’t thinking about much of anything other than how the hell did I survive? My brother laid it out to me what happened and emphasized that I should not be alive. He wasn’t trying to be cruel–just matter-of-fact. It was a lot to try to understand, especially since I was still high as balls. Honestly, the only thing I really cared about was the ice water because it was ‘amazing’ in my words. I couldn’t stop gushing about it to anyone who came into my room. I insisted that every nurse bring me a new glass of ice water (usually meant they’d bring me a glass of water and a glass of ice), which meant I had several by the end of the day on my side table. The nurse (whichever was in my room at that moment) would ask if I wanted to get rid of any of the cups and I would be reluctant to let go of any of them–even if the ice had melted. That was my norm for my first few days in the hospital–asking for ice water. Actually, that was my norm for the whole week I was awake. I was obsessed with ice water and declared it amazing to anyone who would listen–and anyone who wouldn’t.

I talked to more people the week I was awake in the hospital than I have in the past several years combined. One of the people I talked to was the chaplain. I was chary at first because Christianity has been brutal to me, but he was very laid-back and chill. He didn’t try to shove the Christian God (with a capital G) down my throat  and was just there to listen to me babble about my experience. This was the third or fourth day I was awake, so I wasn’t completely out of my mind. I think he was one of the people who asked if I questioned why this happened to me. If so, my standard response is, “No. There’s no reason it shouldn’t have happened to me. I’m not special or exempt, and I didn’t take particularly good care of myself.”

The part that got to me and still does is why I was lucky enough to return with so little damage. That’s the part I don’t get and has the power to drive me crazy if I let it. My nurse’s aide who does my hair (did it today for the last time) told me about a friend of hers who had a similar experience to mine when he was 49. Except he had to be revived 3 times and was in a coma for 29 days (I think it was around that much time). and he had necopathy in his lower legs that he still has to live with. He’s on permanent disability–and he used to be a hockey player when he was younger. He was fit and healthy when this happened to him; he’s not any longer.


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Don’t call it a comeback (miracle)

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If my life were a movie, it would start with me collapsing in my front hallway and the credits would roll as I woke up from a week’s long ‘sleep’ (i.e., drug-induced unconsciousness), ready to fight whomever and whatever needed fighting. I had a tube in my nose to help me breathe, but I didn’t know anything about that. All I knew was that I was in a strange place with strangers all around me, and I was having none of that. But the movie would have ended before any of my cussing was heard. The last shot would be of my eyes flying opens and the medical team cheering.

Credits roll as there’s my  Rocky montage of me leaving the hospital and taking a brisk morning constitutional every day–going a bit farther with each walk. No, it’s not that inspirational so maybe roll credits as I leave the hospital. That’ll leave them crying, right? I’m being sarcastic because I’m becoming more and more uncomfortable with the miracle label.

Look. I get that these are hard times. We’re still in the middle of a pandemic in which the best we can hope for is that it becomes like the flu. A few thousand people die from it every year, but it’s mostly treatable. We get a shot that covers the five or six most likely strains per use and roll the dice. The best we can hope for is that wearing masks will remain a thing along with social distancing, but I don’t hold out hope for that. The Republicans are Republicanning and I have all but checked out of politics because it’s just grim.

I know more than one person has mentioned that they needed good news such as my medical story arc. I don’t begrudge people that, but it’s my actual life–the one I’m still living. That one slice of my life is inspiring, sure, but only if you keep a tight focus on that one week. If you pull back the camera to show more of the context, well, it becomes less inspirational. And, not to be too cynical, but’s not actually about me, the person. Why do I say that? Because it could have happened to anyone. I didn’t have a hand in the miracle that everyone keeps claiming happened. Ok, yes, my fourteen years of Taiji practice has probably helped me come back as close to ‘normal’ as I did, but the rest was love and luck. Neither of which I had anything to do with.


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