It was like getting hit in the chest with a truck. I didn't want to be the person who went to the hospital for indigestion or heartburn so I jumped into the shower and stood under the hot water until my right side started going numb. The fear hit but I didn't hesitate. I woke Emiley up and asked her to take me to the hospital. "Do you want to maybe try the urgent care?" "No the hospital." She paled. by the time she was helping me out to the car my right side was going limp. I remember starting to white out on the way to the hospital. When we arrived she helped me into a wheelchair and they let us through security into the er lobby. The admission lady gave me a sick look and sent me straight back to triage. I was really fading at that point. the surgeon said there was no blood in my brain by the time I made it to the table. The last thing I remember, before waking up, was being taken back for a scan of some kind. I asked them to stop so I could use the bathroom and they did. I remember really struggling with it... my whole right side was dead but my left was as strong as normal. Who can guess why they let me hop in alone like that. I got back on the gurney and then it was lights out for me. Emiley says I was still there with her, while we were waiting for surgery and after my brother showed up, but I don't remember any of it.
It had been an aortic dissection. the artery ruptured where it enters my heart and blood had just been pumping straight into my chest cavity. The surgery lasted eight hours. The following coma lasted a month during which my kidneys shut down, I suffered a heart attack, pneumonia, sepsis, and a stroke. Mom and Emiley were there every day fighting for me. asking me to just please open my eyes for them. and then one day I did.
The recovery hospital wasn't a nice place and a lot of my time there was spent in shadow. I couldn't speak because of the tracheotomy. I could barely write. They had brought me one of my sketchbooks and I'd been using it to scratch messages so I could let people know when I needed the bedpan or cleaned up. When I noticed the transition from pre stroke drawings to post stroke chicken scratch it was was jarring. It made me wonder how much of myself that I'd lost... it was terrifying. And it made me realize how terrified emiley must be. I needed to think of just the right thing to say. Something that would make light of the situation without minimizing the severity of it. So I wrote in big scraggly letters that take up half the page, "Check out my skinny thighs!"
It's taped to the mirror in my bedroom now. A gentle reminder that no matter how arduous the recovery is... I'm still here. I'm still me.