Can I just Get a Zipper? - #Wattys2015

What is it like to really almost die?

The scariest thing about really almost dying is you don't really notice.

I mean sure. The time my doctor told me they saw a "something" in my liver, and then started talking about scheduling me for surgery and saying that I "might" live if they could take ice cream scoops out of my liver, I noticed and it was scary as heck. 

The doctors talked about my life like it was done.  And I tried to play it cool but I spent a week Googling "how long do you live when pancreatic cancer metastasizes." 

But then they did some crazy test where they injected my body with radioactive material to get a better look at this "something" (I am not sh*tting you, they actually had this canister on the counter in the room that had all kinds of radioactive warning labels on it, which contained the stuff they were going to inject into me--I felt like spiderman for the rest of the day). It turned out the "something" was really nothing. An artifact they called it. Which a nurse told me was code for a smudge on the screen.

But that time I didn't actually almost die. I just thought I was going to.

Every time my life has been at risk, I didn't know until after the fact. I had surgery to take out a probably benign tumor and whoopsie that looks like cancer...guess its a good thing you accidentally came in for your scans after only a year instead of the 5 years you had planned, eh? (<==showing off my inner Canadian for y'all (<==showing off my 3 year stint in Delaware))

Then just recently I was not only unaware--I was completely out of my skull crazy, hallucinating and paranoid, because of the drugs and/or sleep deprivation from the noisy ICU. Yeah I thought I was going to die, but it was because I thought my head had been exploded and I had some lame hospital doctor instead of my neurologist looking after me. On some level, even though it seemed real, I think subconsciously the sane me knew my head hadn't really been exploded.

I had a friend who jumped off a bridge. Which I could never do. I mean as much as things can sometimes suck, I absolutely love living. I remember being 15 and hitting rock bottom emotionally (though I hit worse bottoms after that) and sitting in my window looking at the night. I wondered why I didn't feel like jumping or something, because isn't that what angsty depressed teens do? But I thought "Hell, no. I already have a problem with the fact that I am not going to live forever--that sucks more that this BS."

But my friend, she did it. We never knew why. I think it was because she had student loans she couldn't pay, and creditors were calling her. She must have known it was coming, since she was orchestrating it. I have no idea what that would feel like. She did have a lot of empty bottles of booze on her coffee table, like she was working up the nerve to die.  

So if you know it's coming, all data I have points to it being scary--even if it's something you want. 

When my grandmother was dying, I didn't really know what to do. She was in a coma after her stroke, drifting in and out, and her brain was probably as messed up as mine was when I was hallucinating. She kept seeing "little people" and thinking she was a young woman traveling the world, writing tour books. I talked to her when she was rambling, but when she was quiet I sat there watching her labored breathing, wondering if she knew what we knew--that this was her end, and that it would be soon if the universe was merciful.

There was one time when I was there with my sister, and we were getting ready to leave, I suggested aloud that we should take Grandma's cane home. Grandma started to moan unintelligibly. Like she knew we were saying she wouldn't need that cane anymore--perma-anymore. Her eyes were closed, so my sister and I both said for the benefit of her ears that we would leave the cane because obviously she would need it when she got out. But we took the cane with us. 

Grandma died that night. She had been constantly pulling her oxygen mask off, and this time she did it when nobody was around to replace it, with the DNR preventing them from doing anything life-saving, the nurses just let her pass. 

Sometimes I wonder if she fussed when we were leaving, because we were leaving, and she wanted us to stay. I don't know. Now that I look back I wish I had talked to her more. Silly stuff like "I'm here grandma. The sky is pretty today." All I could think of at the time was "I love you." I guess that's enough. 

I don't know what it feels like to really actually die, obviously. When I had epiglotitis and stopped breathing, I remember the panic, the fiery pain of unsuccessful intubation attempts. But it's detached and surreal. I didn't really have time to think that I was dying, all I was thinking about is AIR.

I do know what it's like to be the person who is left behind. It's sad. The world doesn't quite seem right. Sometimes you use denial to make it right. If you are a psychology student, you remember what denial means with the acronym Don't Even kNow I Am Lyin'. Which I never appreciated until it actually happened to me. 

When my friend jumped off the bridge, I held on to a fantasy for a few days that she had actually faked her death to escape her creditors and was now living in some tropical country running a bird sanctuary, which was always her dream. Logically, it makes more sense that she really did die. But it gave me a little hope, until the worst shock had passed.

It really sucks that death is inevitable, but I have had enough brushes to appreciate life. You can't worry about how you will eventually die, there is no point since you can't change it (except in your SFF novels). The best thing to do is to be happy with right here and right now. Don't spend your days unhappy because you haven't achieved your dreams. 

I am happy right here, sitting on this couch, typing on my laptop, in my cramped apartment with a kitty litter box only 4 feet away from me, and my cat sleeping on the arm of the couch with her head hanging upside down. 

Yes I still want things, I still have wishes, but if I died tomorrow, I would have no regrets.

Life is life.