Howdy howdy! It’s been a while!
I won’t give you the long, boring story of my absence. I’d actually like you to continue following and reading my blog…which, if you do, you know that I am a huge fan of Supernatural. And you might also know that for a good while this season (currently Season 9), I haven’t been exactly enthusiastic about the show. Well, trust SPN to pull up in the 9th inning and take over all the bases! The last few episodes have been really good and my love of the show sparked once again. The latest installment, 9×18, has so many parallels, subtext, underlying stories, connections, and so much foreshadowing that I’ve been drowning myself in analysis since it aired. By analysis I mean both of the show and internally of myself. Dean is my mirror.
And like Dean, I’ve known guilt, anger, shame, love, and death. And like Dean, I have used humor and denial to avoid facing the pain. But unlike Dean, when I faced Death, it inspired me to grab at life and never let go.
Two years ago, almost to the day, I woke up in the cardiovascular ICU at one of the biggest hospitals in our region. I was grey to the sight and cold to the touch. I was on so much morphine that staying awake for more than 15 minutes was a challenge. There were tubes everywhere. I had two IV lines and an oxygen cannula and a pulse monitor and a heart monitor.
But the story doesn’t actually start there.
When I was a child, my mother took me and my sister every weekend to visit my grandparents, her parents, who lived just over an hour away. You could set your watch by our Saturday trip there and back.
At 16, newly christened with a driver’s license, my mother bravely agreed to let me drive to my grandmother’s house on Saturday. As we were getting ready, I felt a stabbing pain in my stomach, but it went as quickly as it came. I thought nothing of it.
We headed out on our weekly pilgrimage with me behind the wheel.
About 20 minutes into our drive, my right side began to hurt. At first, it was just uncomfortable, kind of like a cramp in your side. I tried wiggling around in my seat to get more comfortable, which made my mother nervous, of course. The new kid driver wiggling around in her seat while driving 60 mph in a 2000 pound weapon.
The pain got worse and I told my mother, but within a few minutes it became clear to me I couldn’t continue to drive. I immediately pulled off to the side of the road and got out of the car. That’s when the nausea hit and the pain tripled. I was no longer able to stand up straight.
My mother panicked, but somehow managed to get me back into the truck and sped off. We made it to the hospital in my grandmother’s town in record time, way less than an hour.
When I woke up many hours later, my mother and the rest of my family were there with me. I had suffered a kidney stone attack but was fine.
Fast forward about 20 years. That’s when my second attack happened. Painful but manageable. I spent a few hours in the emergency room and a day at home.
The doctors told me at the time that it was very unusual to have an attack so young and even more unusual to not have another for 20 years. But they warned me that people who are susceptible to kidney stone attacks likely have another or several more within 5 years. And they warned me that any of the dozens of stones I had could get stuck and block my bladder which could lead to death. Surgery to remove them was the best option they said.
Now look, I’ve been in the hospital a grand total of twice in my life. Once to be born and another when I had pneumonia at 2. I’ve never had surgery, never broken an arm…cause other than this kidney stone thing, I’m healthy. What are the chances that I’m going to face death from a kidney stone? Really?
I remember at the time thinking to myself that the doctor was trying to use scare tactics on me. What I didn’t realize at the time was just how close she came to predicting my future.
And so it happened that two years ago, I went to the emergency room for a kidney stone. They did what they do – hooked me up to IV, gave me pain meds, and took an xray to locate it…except they couldn’t. The next few hours were a blur. What I remember is suddenly being sick to my stomach, not being able to get my breath, and fading in and out of consciousness. I vaguely remember being transported by ambulance (which I thought was the life rescue helicopter) from the localized emergency room to the actual hospital. When I woke up, my parents were there and I was being prepped for surgery.
It was two days later when I woke up that I found out what had happened to me.
A kidney stone had become lodged in my bladder and was blocking everything. The fluid I was given in the ER backed up onto my lungs, when then increased the pressure on my heart causing my heart to race and my blood pressure to sink. Because all of the fluid was backing up into my system, I developed sepsis. Sepsis can kill and kill quickly. So that, with the pressure on my heart and a deadly low BP, I was hours, or maybe an hour away from death if the doctors didn’t get the situation under control and fast.
Just the day prior to this, I had run for 30 minutes. I’d been training for a 5K and lifting weights.
The next day I was in ICU. Fighting for my life.
It can happen that fast.
I spent 5 days in ICU. I was by far the youngest person on the floor, by at least 20 years, and two people lost their lives during my stay.
I have literally faced Death and overcome.
But the difference between me and Dean Winchester is that while we’ve both faced Death, I came out determined to live my life, for me. Screw everyone else.
And let me be clear – I don’t mean that I don’t care about anyone else. I do. I love my family and my daughter and my friends more today that before this entire experience. I cherish them more than I could ever have imagined doing so before. But what I mean is they do not control or run my life. No one gets to tell me what makes me happy or what I can and can’t do. I am 100% in charge of my direction on this Earth and I’m going to steer my ship, without bowing to the call of others.
I do not live for them. I live for me.
I pray that Dean Winchester will learn how to live for himself because, and I can say this from personal experience, it is freeing and wonderful.
justjezzasays 