I woke up on a Friday, my voice slurred and seeing double. The MRI showed plenty of hemangiomas in my brain. My neurosurgeon decided to take out my bleeding hemangioma. He thought the operation had been successful, but as he was closing the incision, he discovered that the other hemangiomas had bled. He took out the temporal bone to allow the blood to come out, and I got out of the coma. When I woke up, my left arm and leg weren’t working. I’m alive, but an uphill slope awaits me.
When she had a routine x-ray, my late client found out she had a malignant lung cancer and was told she would die in six months to a year. She fought tooth and nail to keep living, yet she lost her battle after seven years. Our friend told us that his best friend had been diagnosed with a very aggressive lymph cancer and was told he had a month to live. He’s desperately trying to find treatment for it. The countdown has started.
We live a full, active, and creative life – for some, pleasurable; for others, satisfying because successful or meaningful. But suddenly, our path changes direction. We don’t know why or how; it happens unbeknownst to us, and there’s nothing we can do save keep on going: stubbornly, despondently keep on. My late client faced, and our friend’s friend is facing, the threat of death. I was unconsciously close to death. But I’m still living, and what she experienced, and he’s experiencing, as a descent, I’m experiencing as a progressive (if very slow) ascent. Yet, we all have in common the unexpected development, the inability to understand, and the difficulty in coming to terms.
I’m still living; still oscillating between anger and yearning, on one end, and pleasure and happiness, on the other. The key is to stop oscillating and to stay firmly in the other end, but it’s a difficult thing to do. However, when I’m on the radiant end, I move back to darkness after quite a while, and there are three reasons for the delay: my reading and writing; Eric and my friends, who love me and whom I love, and with whom I discuss ideas and thoughts; and Nathan, who loves me and whom I love. I feel joy when we discuss ideas and politics, and in watching him grow.
When she had a routine x-ray, my late client found out she had a malignant lung cancer and was told she would die in six months to a year. She fought tooth and nail to keep living, yet she lost her battle after seven years. Our friend told us that his best friend had been diagnosed with a very aggressive lymph cancer and was told he had a month to live. He’s desperately trying to find treatment for it. The countdown has started.
We live a full, active, and creative life – for some, pleasurable; for others, satisfying because successful or meaningful. But suddenly, our path changes direction. We don’t know why or how; it happens unbeknownst to us, and there’s nothing we can do save keep on going: stubbornly, despondently keep on. My late client faced, and our friend’s friend is facing, the threat of death. I was unconsciously close to death. But I’m still living, and what she experienced, and he’s experiencing, as a descent, I’m experiencing as a progressive (if very slow) ascent. Yet, we all have in common the unexpected development, the inability to understand, and the difficulty in coming to terms.
I’m still living; still oscillating between anger and yearning, on one end, and pleasure and happiness, on the other. The key is to stop oscillating and to stay firmly in the other end, but it’s a difficult thing to do. However, when I’m on the radiant end, I move back to darkness after quite a while, and there are three reasons for the delay: my reading and writing; Eric and my friends, who love me and whom I love, and with whom I discuss ideas and thoughts; and Nathan, who loves me and whom I love. I feel joy when we discuss ideas and politics, and in watching him grow.
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