Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Revealed

Unbeknownst to me while I was recovering, my husband had begun chronicling my ordeal.  I believe if first began on Facebook.  He placed a post on my wall that I was hospitalized and if anyone wanted to be kept abreast of what was going on to “friend” him.  Much to my surprise, and perhaps his, many people connected with Keane to see what the hell was up.  Then at some point he began writing regular emails about the goings on of my days.  They began while I was still in the hospital and continued through my time at home.  These emails went out to family and a few close friends.  At least that was what I thought.

I recall rolling over in a haze every so often to see Keane sitting in a chair in my room or next to me in bed typing away.  Of course I had no idea what he was doing at the time nor could I see.  My vision was affected by the stroke and because it seemed as if I was looking at everything through a fishbowl, I never read or watched television let alone try to deal with looking at a computer screen.  But every day at some point I saw (or heard) Keane typing away.

Not really sure when it happened, but I remember being in a relatively conscious state, and asking Keane what he was writing about. The exchange went like this:

Me - “What are you typing?”
Keane - “I’m drafting my daily email report on you”
Me - “Who do you send it to?” 
Keane - “Anyone that asks to be on the list.” 
Me - “Ok, well how many people are on it?”
Keane – “About fifty or so.”
Me – “What? Fifty?”

At that moment it hit me.  My husband was providing PRIVATE, intimate details of my fragile physical state to fifty people on a daily basis.  I was not happy.  In fact I was furious. 

Oblivious to how therapeutic it all was for him at the time, I immediately expressed my displeasure with the situation.  He had been writing for weeks at that point and I was mortified. Simply mortified.  I could not believe that he would take such intimate details of my struggle to recover and just email them to a list of people who mostly just wanted to be nosey (or so I thought).  I asked him, no I actually told him, to stop.  I was not comfortable with it and even though a lot was already out there, the less people knew the better for me. 

Although I am an extremely outgoing and social person, I am innately private. Not many people knew a whole lot about me and I kinda like it that way.  Those people who are closest to me know I don’t like being perceived as weak or unable, so the though of detailed emails depicting me learning to use my walker, dress myself, eat, and the whole host of things I was pissed off I couldn’t do, made me want to crawl under the bed and hide.  I was beside myself that Keane felt it was ok to share this.  Deep down I think I ultimately felt humiliated.  Ashamed I needed to be fed.  Constantly feeling “less than” because I couldn’t walk or bathe myself.  It was probably the first time I was faced with how I was feeling emotionally about my situation as opposed to how I was feeling physically during the recovery process.

I know that Keane never intended for me to feel any of those things.  He was apologetic.  He told me he would stop sending the emails. And he did.  Then the phone started furiously ringing after a week.  People who Keane had previously been emailing were now calling.  They hadn’t received an update in over a week and were concerned.  Was I ok?  Was I back in the hospital? Was I dead?  Apparently those updates were important to more people than just Keane. 

After I don’t know how many calls Keane told me people were concerned. They were asking about me and wanted to know how I was doing.  He joked and said, “Your minions are concerned.  They want to follow your progress.” I laughed.  He then told me what was actually in some of the emails. He read a few to me.  Some of the stuff made me squirm a bit in my mind, but overall I guessed it was ok at the time.  Honestly, there are several emails that are pages upon pages long that I have never brought myself to read.  To this day I don’t want to actually reveal to myself what Keane shared with our family, friends, and colleagues.  The reception of those emails always seemed positive so I never really felt the need to know what was actually in them.  I can’t imagine there was ever a line that read, “Really tired today.  Had to hold Angela up five times over the toilet because her meds are giving her wicked runs”, but I am sure there are things that might make me uncomfortable to read.  Not as uncomfortable as that, per se, but uneasy just the same. Keane assured me his prose was about my positive strides and physical accomplishments.  There was nothing unsavory or negative that would put me in an unflattering light.  And I know that.  I knew it then.  I was just too self absorbed in my embarrassment and desire for privacy to think about what those emails did for him. 

It also made me think about how many people came to see me in the hospital.  At one point Keane was wondering if he should turn people away.  The ICU nurses told him if he or I needed a break from visitors to say the word and they would run interference.  They could be the “bad guy” if we didn’t want anyone to see me.  It got to the point where the nurses did intervene and sent people away because the stimulation was too much for me and I really needed a break.  I was drugged up and in pain, and only remember some of my visitors coming to my bedside.  For every one person I recall there are three I don’t.  It doesn’t bother me so much now. The idea that people in both my personal and professional lives saw me at my absolute worst. At the time though, it shook me to my core.  Frightened me to death that people wouldn’t or couldn’t see me the same again. 

 I know now that seeing me in a vulnerable state didn’t diminish what people thought of me.  I am still strong.  I am still me.  It was easy to stay in that mindset of caring about other’s perceptions of me.  Would I still be regarded as a strong and sound businesswoman? Were people going to handle me with kid gloves from now on?  All kinds of stupid things rolled around in my clot filled brain. All of which I know were manifestations of the insecurity I had always carried around.

Looking back I know sharing those updates was how Keane coped with everything that was happening.  He had a ton to deal with.  He was very much alone in that experience.  I mean, I was there but I was really out of it most of the time. 

I also do see the irony of how I am now putting out my most intimate thoughts about this experience, not to fifty people comprising of family and friends, but to anyone on the Internet who feels like reading them.  That is not wasted on me.  I have come to understand why Keane wrote and I have since apologized for being so guarded and upset about his emails.  I am in the process of growing.  Each day I realize I am becoming a little more ok with myself.  Kindness to one’s self is the greatest gift you can give.  I am embracing and learning that more each day.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Love is a Sponge Bath

There is no more humbling an experience in this world than to be dependent on others for the most basic of needs.  We all take for granted the simplest things.  Tying our own shoes, bathing, even wiping our own asses.  It’s all a luxury people.  Not a given, a luxury. 

I am fiercely independent.  Not sure if I was born like this or if it was instilled in me at a very young age. I like to believe it’s a bit of both.  Independence is a great quality to have, but I was (or am) such in a manner that to need or want help is considered a weakness.  So you could imagine the degree to which I was mortified when I realized I had lost the ability, albeit temporary, to do for myself in the most basic of ways. 

In the hospital I was hooked up to all kinds of funky wire contraptions so it took a small army of nurses to just get my gown changed.  I had a catheter, a pick line in my right arm, oxygen canula in my nose, IV’s in both arms, and all kids of round sticky things where they could hook wires and shit up to me taped all over my chest, torso, neck, and head.  And I’m sure a few other things I can’t really recall.  I can remember, pretty clearly actually, one of my fantastic ICU nurses asking me what I wanted.  It was about four days into my hospitalization and I was apparently crying and feeling exceptionally gross (one of many times I can assure you) so she asked what she could do.  I can clearly remember saying, “I’ll give a blow job to every doctor in this place if someone would please wash my fucking hair”.  I had really long hair at the time and it was sweaty, knotted, smelly, and just plain out gross.  Not to mention I could feel it sticking to my neck, back, and shoulders.  I had the creepy crawlies in places I couldn’t even feel.  Of course my nurse, laughed hysterically and heartily replied. “That won’t be necessary hon. Let’s see what we can do.”  I told her my husband had brought my shampoo and conditioner from home.  She told me be she’d be right back and left my room, still shaking her head laughing.  Imagine that.

A short bit later she returned with two of my favorite ICU nurses, Rachel and Cherise. They were both around my age and had a great deal of empathy for their patients along with a fabulous bedside manner.  Just about all of my nurses were great, but I knew Rachel and Cherise cared about what was happening to me.  On the few occasions Keane was not at my bedside, if they were on duty I felt like I was ok. 

“SPA DAY!” Cherise yelled as they entered the room. As long as I live I will never forget how these three women washed and conditioned my hair, cut both my finger and toe nails, and even shaved under my arms for me so I felt somewhat human again.  All in all they spent what felt like the entire afternoon with me, but I am sure it was probably only about an hour at best.  They didn’t move as if they were rushed.  Perhaps they enjoyed doing that for me as much as I appreciated them doing it.  And goddamn if they did it all without getting a single drop of water on my wires or my bed.  That was pretty amazing to me.  I know that was and is not part of their job.  As I sit typing this now my eyes are welling in tears, still moved by their kindness towards me.  They could have half assed washed my hair or even waited for shift change, but they didn’t.  They took great care in making me feel clean and comfortable in a state where comfort was a distant memory.  It was amazing to feel so clean. Cherise later told me she wished they had a cooler gown to put me in. I was too mouthy to be wearing plain hospital flowers. Which was true. 

The kindness of my ICU nurses can only be overshadowed by the will and kindness of my husband, Keane.  The nurses had me in twelve-hour shifts, three to five days a week.  When I came home, and I was not mobile when I came home, Keane had me 24/7 with no help.  Just us.

I was stunned at every woman who said to me, “My husband would’ve just hired a nurse and went back to work”.    Lucky for me I wasn’t married to their asshole husbands.  I was married to Keane Aldrich. 

Every day for weeks on end I needed something.  It was exhausting for me to be so fucking needy.  I can’t begin to imagine how hard it was for Keane.  Now, after thirteen years together not too many things are sacred anymore.  However, I don’t think either of us foresaw the type of intimacy that ensued during my recovery until we were well into our eighties.  Its one thing to need someone to help you to the bathroom; its another to have them carry you to the bathroom, place you and hold you on the toilet, then wipe your ass afterwards and safely return you to bed.  Keane did that.  He did it because I refused to use a bedpan.  Yes, I am a stubborn bitch. 

He washed, combed and blow dried my hair, bathed me out of a basin until I was steady enough to be placed in the tub, changed my clothes (well pajamas), and dressed me when I needed to get out of bed to go to Physical or Occupational Therapy.  All the while cooking, keeping the house clean, and taking care of our dogs.  I would like to believe that I could take that kind of care of Keane and our life had the shoe been on the other foot.  Deep down now, I know I would do my best, but it would fall way short of what Keane did for me.

The icing on the cake of the ridiculously grand myriad of things Keane did on a daily basis was his precise track and distribution of the massive amounts of medication I was taking each day.  He followed the doctor’s instructions to the letter.  If I was to take something every twelve hours, he would set his alarm to wake up in the middle of the fucking night, sometimes twice, to make sure my meds stayed on schedule.  Looking back it was astounding.  I don’t think I could have done it. 

Luckily we had gracious friends and colleagues who brought us groceries and cooked occasional meals for us to give Keane a bit of reprieve.   And in the rare occasion Keane had to run out for whatever, plenty of folks were willing to come baby sit my sorry, bedridden ass.  Keane was laid off from work a month before the stroke.  It was one of the best-timed things in our life.  I know whole-heartedly that if he were working at the time, he would have taken a leave of absence to care for me.  I am grateful that wasn’t the case.  Things could have been much more difficult if that were so. 

I always tell people that I had a stroke, but it happened to Keane.  That is true.  He had to do all the hard stuff.  I just had to be stubborn and will myself well.  We still struggle with the aftermath of this ordeal we experienced together.  Our dynamics have changed, as have we as individuals. But I know this; I’ve never known safety, love, and absolute selflessness like I had those months during my recovery. And I probably never will again.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Clock Unplugged

Apparently I have no soul. That’s what one ridiculous woman said when she realized I was in my late thirties and had no children, “gasp”, by choice.  Motherhood is a hot topic in the thirty-something circle of women on our planet.  It is a topic that I am more than happy to avoid; yet I will openly engage in conversation about it if asked.   And at thirty-seven years old, I am asked.  A lot.

I am an anomaly in my family.  I am over thirty, childless, I can’t cook, and am a horrible Catholic.  It’s amazing they haven’t revoked my Italian card yet.  I am everything a good Italian woman is not.  I suppose my loud mouth coupled with my propensity for cursing and vulgarity has allowed me to keep my Italian card thus far.  Plus I love me some garlic. 

Babies.  I’ve never had the overwhelming desire to create life.  If you think about it, there is really nothing more narcissistic than creating a little “you”.  I’ve said many times that my clock never got plugged in.  Hell, I might have been born without one altogether. When I was approaching thirty-three Keane and I discussed having a child. Just one.  We thought about the fun things; what it will look like, how amazing it would be to have a child with all our best qualities (our kid would have great hair and amazing cheekbones), and how intelligent it would be.  But the more we thought about it, we realized that we would have to give up everything from our money to our freedom, and in my case, my body for at least nine months just so it can turn around and tell us how much it hates us because we won’t let it do something stupid like go on vacation with friends when they are only fifteen.  Yes, all that love and sacrifice so my teenager can tell me to “Go fuck myself”.  And then I’d have to give up my remaining earthly freedoms because I would beat said teenager to a bloody pulp.  Yeah, so no motherhood for me. 

Please don’t get me wrong.  I adore children.  Both my siblings have children and almost all of my friends do as well and I love being around them and engaging them.  Yet I am pretty sure I cannot be trusted to create and shape a life without royally fucking it up beyond any and all recognition.  I am a much better and happier dog owner.  I am, and always have been too selfish to give as much of myself that is needed to be a good parent.  Key word being GOOD.  Any douche bag can pop out a kid.  That’s not the point.  I think being a parent is the hardest, most important job anyone, man or woman, can do.  And frankly it’s too much pressure for me.  No thanks I will stick with dogs.

After the stroke I was on a daily regimen of Coumadin, which is a blood thinner.   I had to go to the Coumadin outpatient clinic daily to have my blood INR levels checked.  On one of my first visits to the Coumadin clinic the pharmacist asked us if we had any children.  I told him no.  He gave me this concerned look.  “Are you planning on having any?”  I simply replied “Nope.  Not in our plans.”  He then proceeded to tell me, after he released a sigh of relief that could have been deemed as offensive, that if the thrombosis in my brain had occurred during pregnancy I would most certainly be dead.  Better yet, since this happened to me once I had a 300% likelier chance that it would occur again during pregnancy.  During pregnancy most thrombosis (blood clots) occurrences usually happen in the third trimester.  And get this shit, the survival rate for the mother is around 1%.  Fetal survival rate, 98%. Basically because the mother is compromised by hosting the fetus and the fetus is far enough along to be born healthy and vibrant, even if a few weeks early.  How fucked up is that?  So basically I was advised that getting pregnant would most likely be a suicide mission, leaving my husband to raise an otherwise healthy yet motherless child on his own.  Keane was not down for that.

We were told a whole host of other things I needed to avoid on blood thinners.  For days we were mindful of everything I needed to do to keep my INR levels stable, until we got into the routine.  Then, out of nowhere, it hit me.  I can’t have children.  It was no longer my choice because someone had taken it away from me.  And I was pissed.

I would be lying if I said that I went into some sort of mourning period.  I didn’t.  Bottom line was I was just angry.  No matter I had decided years before I wasn’t doing it anyhow.  It was the principal.  As Keane so accurately stated to me when we talked about it, “You just hate people telling you what you can and can’t do”.  That really is the truth.  I hate that.  But honestly who likes it?  Being told what to do is a drag.  Unless you are a complete moron, then I am sure some direction is warranted.

I know that my decision to not have children was a good one.  It probably helped keep me alive this long.  Do I ever wonder what my life would be like had I made a different decision?  Sure.  Then I go to bed and realize I get to sleep through the night.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

The Mind's Eye

The human body is a pretty amazing thing.  The only thing more astounding to me is the mind.  We are exactly what we THINK we are.  You know the old universal saying, “Perception is reality”? Well my reality and sense of self were pretty skewed for a long time. 

Looking back (and when I say back I mean as early as my adolescence and as recently as two years ago), I don’t fully understand how I came to allow myself to feel so badly on a regular basis.  I know the reason. I can justify it, as the day is long.  It was easier to adopt and accept what I thought other people’s viewpoints of me were rather than sit up and form my own sense of self.  But what I ask myself now is WHY??? Why do we do this? Why did I? 

We are too immersed in a world where what everyone else thinks matters.  It’s stupid.  It’s unnecessary.  Sure we need to make good impressions to get jobs, perhaps influence others and all that jazz.  But why do we as a society take to heart what everyone else thinks about us, not only giving credence to it but also allowing it to form how we see ourselves?  Does anyone else see the insanity in this?  Total bullshit, that’s what it is.

If you are reading this saying to yourself, “I don’t care what anyone thinks of me” you are a liar.   Fuck you, you lie. We all care to one degree or another.  And most of us are ashamed to admit it.  I had this epiphany about six months after I was released from the hospital.  To fully illustrate the epiphany, you need the back-story…

For those of you who know me personally, you know I have made a great deal of lifestyle changes since being hospitalized.  I have always been a relatively healthy person, but I was (and still am) a beer and coffee snob. I enjoyed fine ales and varieties of good food.  I would exercise on a semi regular basis and began to dabble in yoga when I was in my late twenties.  Although I was carrying extra weight I felt like I was on a good track.  So all in all I was content with my behaviors and lifestyle.  Looking back, I simply sat on the fence and tried to maintain the status quo. 

After I emerged from the hospital in February of 2010, I went home in a pharmaceutical haze. It was not a pretty place to be.  Fifteen oral medications daily I had to throw down my gullet on top of stomach injections twice a day to assist in the transition of blood thinners.  From what I remember, it was fabulous. (For those of you who may be slow insert sarcasm here)  My husband, Keane, who was my nursemaid, cook, housekeeper, PR person, advocate and everything else you can imagine, saw my displeasure in the amount of medications I was obligated to take and knew how much I wanted to be mobile again.  I wanted out.  Out of the non-functioning, bloated, immobile body I was trapped in. So we called in Rhondalynn.

Rhondalynn is a fabulous person and one hell of a doctor.  We went to Chatham College together and were good friends. She was a senior when I was a freshman but we were both loud, crazy, and liked to say “fuck” a lot so we hit it off splendidly.  Anyhow Keane kept her in the loop while I was sick, as he did half the universe (that’s a story for another post), and she offered help if and when I was ready for it.  Rhondalynn is an MD who is also an ND.  In short she is an ND who practices anthroposophical medicine and uses natural methods of healing.  Yeah I know sounds hokey.  But little did I know how she would help me change my world and how I viewed it.

There was no magic pill.  It was food.  Foreign food.  Organic food.  Natural food.  Expensive food.   Food that is hard as hell to find in Central Pennsylvania.  Rhondalynn told me for six weeks I had to give up the following: dairy, gluten (in all forms), eggs, corn, soy, tomatoes, citrus fruit, died fruit, all processed food, chocolate, pork, white potatoes, rye, soup, any and all artificial food colorings, sugar, alcohol and worst of all caffeine.  This was the basic list of things I had to let go.  The specific list is much longer.  There was also a list of herbs, supplements, and daily rituals in which I had to partake along with these dietary changes.

Fuck me. Fuck me hard.

Needless to say I was not enthusiastic.  I would have rather eaten a daily regimen of dogshit that give up bread and coffee.  Bread, cheese, tomato sauce and coffee. I am Italian; these were staples in my world from birth.  Yet I was desperate to get my body back and was willing to give it a try.  I knew it was gonna suck but it was better than being dead or worse, in a body that didn’t work.

As Keane and I embarked on my culinary nightmare there were definitely trials and errors.  Keane cooked and I bitched.  The first thirty days were excruciating for us. On top of loosing all the comfort and enjoyment in food I had known my entire life, I was going through intense caffeine withdrawal.  Now let me say this.  Caffeine withdrawal has been compared to heroine withdrawal.  I have never done heroine, and after the experience of purging caffeine from my body, I never would.  It was awful.  I coughed, sweating like a pig in a mud sauna, not being able to stop the uncontrollable trembling I did for a several days straight. Not my best moments.  But that’s what happens when you get rid of a two pot of coffee a day habit since the age of twelve, cold turkey. 

I survived the six-week regimen.   By week five I was actually enjoying a lot of the food as Keane was really making strides in preparation and it was delicious.  Then after six weeks, Rhondalynn told me the truth; this was not a six-week detox project.  It was the beginning of my change in lifestyle.  I had to eat this way forever.

Fuck me. Fuck me hard, again.

After the shock and disbelief (which did not last as long as the first time this was introduced to me) I accepted that it was going to get me to a healthy place I had never fully been. I decided to remain open minded. I liked a lot of the food and was already feeling much better.  Hell in the six-weeks I ate this way I managed to eliminate half the pharmaceuticals I was ingesting on a daily basis, so something was going right here.

With this new lifestyle I began integrating myself back into the real world.  Going back to work part time, seeing people out again, accepting more visitors to the house, and getting back to more of my outwardly social self.  That’s when I got the wake up call.

Let me say this “wake up call” did not and does not apply to everyone in my life.  But it was apparent and prevalent. When I would reconnect with people on a normal level, meaning I wasn’t doped out on meds or half cocked in pain and could carry on actual conversations, I told them about my strides and how my recovery was accelerated by this lifestyle change. Everyone thought it was great.  I was amazing to them. My dedication to my health and recovery was inspirational.  How I was able to make such difficult, drastic changes for the sake of my well being was astounding. 

Until the phone stopped ringing.

I became invisible to people who were supposed to be my “friends”.  “Call me when you are off that crazy diet and we will go out for dinner”. “Let me know when we can go drinking again”.  “Oh we’d love to come over for dinner but we are so busy next week”.  I wasn’t fun anymore.  I wasn’t desirable to be around because I could not partake in the regular social norms that surrounded food and drink.  I was convinced everyone thought we ate cardboard and rodents.  At times I could laugh at it. But mostly I found myself feeling lonely.

And here we are again, looking inward judging ourselves because of how others treat us. But for me this time was different.  I felt good.  Physically and mentally. Emotionally I was hurt and disappointed but anyone who expected me to compromise my health for their company was, well, a fucking asshole in my book.  Enter the epiphany. The problem wasn’t me. It was them! I didn’t suddenly become not fun.  Even though I felt like a leper I wasn’t one.  And in that moment, how I felt became separated from who I WAS.  I have this one chance to be healthy.  This one body to care for.  A second chance to have a life I really shouldn’t have gotten.  No one was going to allow me to feel bad for taking care of myself despite how unpopular the methods.

In the months since, and to this day, my dearest and closest friends come to visit me and eat what I eat when they are here.  Of course it never hurts that my husband is an amazing cook.  And when I visit them, they make every accommodation to assure I have what I need to eat.  If they cannot they don’t give me shit about bringing my own food.  Even though those individuals are ridiculously few and far between, I love and appreciate them with all my heart.

I can’t really say what it was.  Maybe it was the food, the lack of caffeine or just some simple clarity and common sense. My days of seeing myself through other people’s negative viewpoint were over. Good, bad, or indifferent I was looking in the mirror after 35 years and was really ok with who was looking back.  Little did I know she would only get better.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Two Years Dead

I can clearly remember the excruciating pain.  It was as if someone was slicing the backs of my ears off while trying to scalp me from the line of my brow to the crown of my skull.   Not being able to sleep, just falling in and out of light flickers of consciousness, this was by far the worst migraine I’d ever experienced.  Or so I thought.

Four days into this head pain and I was not getting better.  I was getting worse.  What began as a tinge in my temples had now erupted to massive head pain, vomiting, sweating, chills, and the inability to focus my eyes.  Damn it.  I had to call a doctor.  I am not a fan of going to the doctor, but I had recently begun a new job and was pissed about already missing three days of work.  It occurred to me that I didn’t have a primary physician.  Who the hell do I know that’s a doctor?  I’ve got to get back to work.  Oh, I know, Cat.  I can call my friend Cat, she has Christine’s number and Christine is a doctor.  Thank god for CPAFE, (CPAFE is the Central PA Association for Female Executives, a group to which I had belonged for several years and had just finished up the stint as President.  All my good connections were from CPAFE). Cat answered when I called and gave me Christine’s office number. 

Christine’s receptionist answered and I, slurring my words, pleaded my case.  She agreed to see me that afternoon at 2pm.  Keane had run out for a bit, so I called him and told him I got an appointment.

I remember getting out of bed and taking a sip of water out of the bottle that was sitting on the floor by my bed.  Within ten seconds, and two footsteps I had quickly and unexpectedly projectile vomited the water I had just consumed, along with the banana I had managed to get down for breakfast, all over the floor and facing wall.  Lovely.  I sighed and realized it would be a really dick move of me to leave this mess for Keane to clean up. Not too mention the smell of banana was enough to make me want to rip off my nose.  I got a roll of paper towels out of the hall linen closet and began to sop up my mess.  Wiping off the walls and such.  I remember feeling as if my head was going to explode every time I bent over or looked down.  Luckily Keane arrived home while I was finishing up and found me sitting on the bedroom floor, sweaty, smelly, and nude, trying to clean up the mess.  I explained to him what happened and apologized profusely. I do that a lot. Apologize. 

He told me all was ok and finished cleaning up the mess, (which I am sure to this day was done so half assed I should have just left it for him to begin with).  He grabbed a pair of comfy jeans and a sweatshirt for me to put on.  I was so weak and disoriented I couldn’t dress myself.  Keane helped me on with my bra, panties, jeans, and sweatshirt.  I managed to pull my annoying mane of sweaty hair back into a ponytail.  It was the first of many times to come I would not be able to dress myself.

The doc’s office was about a fifteen-minute drive from home.  I remember feeling like it was an eternity to get there.  I just wanted this pain to subside if even for a few minutes.  Halfway there I looked over at Keane. “I can’t feel my right side”.  “Can you move it?” he asked.   I tried.  I tried to move my arm, my leg, my fingers.  Nothing. “No.” 

We arrived at Christine’s office and Keane had come around to help me out of the car. When he opened the car door, I remember feeling like my left side was pushing my right clean out of the seat.  I would have fallen on my face if I had tried to get out alone.  My right side seemed to have disappeared. 

I can’t imagine what the hell I looked like hobbling into that office on Keane’s shoulder.  It must have been alarming because Christine looked concerned from the get go.  Keane sat me down in her lobby and she looked at me. She asked me three questions.  “Are you on birth control?”  “Yes.”  “Has anyone in your family ever had a heart attack?”  “Yes, my mom.”  I don’t recall the third question.  She looked up at Keane and asked me where I wanted to go.  She was calling an ambulance.  “I am not going to examine her.  We need to get her to a hospital.  I think she is having a stroke.”

“What?”  That was the look I gave Keane.  In the almost thirteen years we had been together, I never saw him afraid of anything. Not until that moment.

The next thing I can recall is some young guy standing over me as I was lying on an exam table in Christine’s back office.  Hell if I know how I go there, but I was there.
He was the EMT asking me a few questions to which I have no idea to this day if I answered.  They loaded my ass into the ambulance, and I remember the EMT guy trying to chat us up.  I do remember him asking me if this was my first time in an ambulance.  “Yep it is.  And it sucks.”  He chuckled and replied, “Yeah, mine too.”  Now if I was feeling up to my normal witty, wise ass self I would have either had a ball busting or flirtatious comeback to his attempt at being cute.  But in the state I was in all I could muster out was. “Funny.” 

It was the most uncomfortable vehicle ride of my life. Apparently they strived to hit every crack, bump, pothole, and uneven crevice in the road.  I am sure I was bitching up a storm about it because my skull felt like it was in a fucking blender on the ice-crush speed. 

They managed to get me to the hospital in one piece and unload me out.  Not too much is clear after that.  I have waves of recollections in and out but mostly what I remember is the blinding pain. 

That’s what happened.  How it all started. Two years ago today. The several months that followed were nothing I could have imagined.  I can’t help but replay the voices in my head, reminding me.  They don’t know how I made it.  I was expected to leave in a body bag. But I didn’t.  Here I sit, in the best shape of my adult life.  Dead two years today. 

Thursday, January 26, 2012

On the Write again...

As I approach the two-year anniversary of my unpleasant tryst with venous thrombosis of the sagital and lateral sinus, (blood clots in the brain, generically categorized as a stroke), I am feeling reflective on the current state my life.  How I am still managing to take in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide each day while simultaneously not loosing my mind or killing anyone is remarkable to me.  I also try to not think too much about the fact that I really shouldn’t be here.  But here I sit.  Pulse and all. 

In my infinite wisdom I though it might help to get my inner thoughts out.  Purge them from my brain and get them on paper.  A book!  A book would be a great idea. My colleagues, friends, and my husband, all encouraged me to write.  So full throttle I began to write feverishly, unconsciously unearthing all kinds of emotion that I forgot existed.  After twenty pages of emotional muck I had to stop.  It was too much to process.    I spent the next several months lying.  Yes, lying, about the book.  “I was still working on it”, “I’ve gotten too busy with work but its on my radar”, and my favorite “Its coming along slowly but surely!”  No it wasn’t coming along.  It wasn’t at all.  I had stopped writing.  I want to finish the book someday but realized that day was not yet here.  That was almost a year ago. 

As I think about writing the book now, I want it to be a clear and honest representation how the stroke transformed me both inside and out.  Yet it had to be funny.  Because I am one funny bitch, (or so I’m told).  I am not a writer.  I am a talker.  I desire to write in a conversational manner.  I want those who read my prose to feel like I am speaking directly to them. Sharing a funny yet intimate conversation. For some reason today, January 25, 2012, I decided to begin to write again.  But not a book…baby steps.  This blog.

I want to take you on a journey of my mind.  What it was like before I almost died and what is going on up there now.  I can’t promise it will be for everyone, (as history has shown me I am not for everyone), but I can promise I will not lie. It will be hysterical at times and uncomfortable at others.  Those who know me intimately may still be surprised at what I uncover here.  But, fuck it.  I am ready to embrace being honest with and about myself.  I am self aware if nothing else. No names or dates will be changed to protect the innocent.  Hell there is no innocent or guilty in my world anymore.  This may be an interesting journey….hop on board if you want and jump off anytime.