You will survive!

I snapped this photo for my kids thinking they'd never see me again.

Last year I almost died. That's one of the reasons I became so stressed out that I sold my pretty city house and ran away to the country. Scared the heck out of me! After two years of mystery illness, I underwent abdominal surgery to remove a mystery tumor (totally benign lump of nothing), then came down with a mystery tummy bug which ended up being advanced c-diff. They call it a superbacteria. There's nothing very super about having it. 50,000 people died from it in the U.S. alone last year, and I was almost one of those victims.

     My husband took me to the ER to get "checked out" a few days after my surgery, never imagining that I'd be there for the next two weeks. At one point in my hospital stay, the doctors came in with the chaplain to tell me that they were worried because the medicine hadn't worked, and I was too weak for surgery, and every organ in my body was shutting down, and I was likely to die that day. I still need therapy from that meeting with my doctors and the hospital chaplain. So scary.

     I knew I was dying, and it made me so sad that I became overcome with negative emotions. I truly didn't see any way to survive, and in that moment the spark went out of me. I lost my will to go on. Hope was gone, sucked up in the words of the experts. I sat in a dark room drowning in dark thoughts with nothing to comfort me but my narcotic drip.

     Then I started to pray, and I came up with some crazy ideas. I pushed the call button and begged the nurse to bring me some colored dry erase pens. Two hours later she brought me one dried up black pen. I told her I needed colors, "All the colors!", ASAP. She gave me more narcotics but then went off shift, and I had a new nurse to harass. She brought me red. The next nurse found me green and purple. I wanted pink and yellow, called my husband and begged through the narcotics to have him run into Target on the way back and buy me some dry erase colors. I was so weak, I hadn't been out of bed for 3 days, knew I couldn't stand, had an abdomen full of fresh scars. But I stumbled to the dry erase board with my collection of markers and started to draw the bouquet of flowers on the shelf. I'm not an artist, and narcotics don't help, and my body trembled and shook and sent shocks of pain everywhere from the act of standing. I made myself do it for 5 minutes. Then 6 minutes an hour later. I cried the whole time, but I drew and drew. A few blue petals, then a nap. A cluster of grapes, then a long nap. It took me the whole day to finish the board, but at the end of that day I was still alive, and I was alive the next day too. I sat in my bed for a few more days with a smile, admiring my hospital masterpiece, feeling the tiny flame of life burning inside again.

     I remember telling my husband good-bye, telling him that I knew I was dying for sure. One year later, it's still a surprise to be alive. There was one half of one awful day when I couldn't even picture getting myself out of the mess I was in and seeing another day. But obstacles can be overcome, bodies can heal, and life can change. It just takes a tiny spark to light a bonfire. I survived, so will you. Just find a way to re-light your spark if it's gone out. Life will get better I promise.

   

     

Color therapy. It made my nurses happy too, but not my doctors.
They just wanted to write important stuff and I hogged up all the room:)


The Candle

I dim, I dim,
I would go out if someone blew.
I did not,
I guess I'm stronger than I knew.

Carol Lynn Pearson


If you have a great story of surviving, please share in my comments section. 

Candles in Missouri.