musings from a hospital bed

Well, actually, it was a gurney.

Well, actually, I was barely coherent. So most of my musings were spent while recuperating the day after.

On Monday I was admitted to the emergency ward when I became violently ill. Everything turned out ok – it turned to be a severe migraine. But due to the severity of it, and possibility of it being some sort of brain aneurysm or tumor or something, they did lots of tests on me including a catscan and blood tests.

It was a very intense yet surreal experience, and here are some things that I have been thinking about connected to it.

1. It seems a very surreal and cosmic thing to watch a doctor stand in front of you holding an envelope which literally contains your future. The contents of that envelope could have been devastating. The reality that my life just might change quite dramatically was very real to me, yet I was somewhat calm about it. It seemed like a weird dream. Life is a journey. My journey, at least at this moment, includes an envelope with happy contents. Some would say I was lucky, but I think that luck demeans the significance of the situation to those individuals, some of whom I know, who walk out of rooms like that with different envelope contents. Who walk out of that room with a life entirely different than the one they came in with. I don’t feel lucky. I feel human. And I feel thankful.

2. During those moments, lying there, waiting for whatever was going to happen, I was somewhat relieved that I did not have a spouse or children who depend on me. With my guilt-prone personality, I was glad that I did not feel that I would need to deal with feeling that I left people whose lives depended on me. This is obviously a touchy situation, and has its own challenges and joys in different ways and at different times in life. Relief is not exactly normally what I feel when I think of my generally solitary life. But it seems strange that at that moment I was thankful to be alone with no dependents. I don’t know what this means. But it is very real to me, nonetheless.

3. Regardless of the implications of #2, I am blessed with amazing people. I was not alone since I became sick. Family, friends, parents. Even a baby offered me great comfort and love. I am often overwhelmed and quizzical about my number of facebook friends. I don’t quite get it – I assume it has much to do with my sparkling manic-depressive personality. But there are wonderful people in my life who I know will stick by me like glue through bad times . . . and good times. And that is golden. I randomly was listening to this healing CD on my way to West Hawk Lake this weekend, and on it the guy said “If you are healthy, you might not have everything. But if you are sick, and you have somebody who cares for you, then you have everything.” That’s real to me, too. Relationships are so much of what this life is about. Relationships with each other, relationship with God. I am more and more convinced that relationships are what life REALLY is about. And I think I’ve got lots of them. Lots of quality ones, too. And I feel blessed with that.

My body is tired. And my hand still hurts from having the IV in it. But otherwise I feel good. And a bit more focused on what matters. And a bit more quizzical about this whole experience. And a bit more frightened of what set this off. But overall I feel blessed – about my life, about my friends and family.

Ummm…that’s all.
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