Crossing
I think a lot of times, we let our lives get all complicated and crazy… and we forget to just be. Sometimes it takes a near-death (or near-hospital) experience to shake things up a bit.
I think a lot of times, we let our lives get all complicated and crazy… and we forget to just be. Sometimes it takes a near-death (or near-hospital) experience to shake things up a bit.
Yes, I’ve had my own near-death hospital expirience before, and it did shake things up a bit. Especially with my family and friends.
It does change one’s perspective on life, it’s true. As the internal cardiac defibrillator in my chest keeps reminding me. But it’s amazing what you can get used to; how you can get back to normal and just find yourself again gliding through life. The idea is to build up to a new level and begin gliding up a little higher.
I agree, Pete! We can’t be in ‘apres disaster’ mode all the time, but we can elevate normal. Smile more. Hug small people. Pull a dandelion that’s not yours. Sing back at a bird.
Sometimes you have life-changing moments… and they cause affect… maybe a new perspective…. or a new attitude… at least for awhile.
Squid… I hope you got some nice flowers….? Did it change you?
Pete… how did your heart attack change you? … have you any lasting changes other than the defib?
Jude… birds like to be sung back to. Mary Poppins knew that. Makes sense YOU’d know that. Just make sure Mouse-kitty don’t get to the bird first.
THIS is the time for her to throw her arms around Ryan and say, “I want you…to buy me some coffee.”
Hi, Brig!
Well, it wasn’t a heart attack. I had a ventricular arrhythmia that got progressively worse over just a few days until it looked like it was going to kill me. My VTs (ventricular tachycardia) were coming in groups of 20s and 30s, which means my blood just gurgled in my heart and didn’t go anywhere. It WAS going to kill me. So after I went into the hospital a second time (two days after I got out the first time), they put in this defibrillator (ICD).
After that… nothing. The problem went away, but not because of the ICD, and there was NO damage to my heart. In fact, while I have way high triglycerides, my bad cholesterol (LDL) is abnormally low, while my good cholesterol is abnormally high, which means super clean arteries. To this day, the doctors don’t know what it was that hit me, though most speculate is was some air-borne virus that I picked up at random. It hung around about a year and messed up my heart rhythms, then went away. Weird, huh?
What the experience did, however, was emphasize how quickly – and how unexpectedly – things can change. While you might think that would leave a person cagey and paranoid, at least for me it was quite the opposite. Knowing there was NOTHING I could do to prevent this, it actually eased concerns and worries I had about another condition I have. (A completely unrelated birth defect.) So dealing with medical problems – though I’m actually quite healthy – has become something I treat in the same way I do everything else: Manage what I can do and not worry about what I can’t. I’ve always been a pretty upbeat person for the most part, and this just kind of verified I’d had the right approach all along.
Dada… coffee is a good way to inspire change. “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
Pete… Sounds like you spent some time in the hospital. Maybe not all at once… but certainly you got to know your doctor a bit.
And I think your approach there is one that can be applied to just about all of life…. might even could be a motto. Thanks for the explanation.
Is UC Slug = UC Santa Cruz, home of the Banana Slugs?
GO SLUGS!
BTDT, many times. Can’t go a week now without thoughts of what I could have done, where I could have been – how much of it could I still reach and what do I do about it? Good for us to self-evaluate once in a while.
Yat… Indeed. Slug U. is my alma mater as well as Randie’s.
Jack… Yah! Go Fighting Banana Slugs!
Grey… Self-eval is a good thing! I am doing the next zine for Dec/Jan. Reflection is a theme. You can’t start a new year without some sort of ponderance on the year passing and the coming year.