One more time…
Since a major health upset in March of 2015, I believe I have been a very lucky person.
That’s when I had an overload of CO-2 in my lungs, due to COPD I’ve had – or known about for the past 12 years. That one was a close call, but hard work and great doctors and nurses brought me through it.
Then, an extreme reaction to a test that most everyone has with no problems with, put me back in again – for 19 days in ICU last July and early August, plus recovery for the next twenty-eight or so days in two more facilities and a long road to recovery since then.
That time it wasn’t excess carbon dioxide, but my heart that was affected and I have been in rehab – one kind or another – since that time.
Well, I had another setback last week when we thought I might be having a heart problem. No fooling around with this one, I have learned better. We went to the Midland ER, where my pulmonologist works and after three days in the hospital, they determined that my problems were a potential blood clot somewhere. They couldn’t determine the size or exact location because of the July reaction to iodine.
All these close calls are leading up to the realization I have come to over the past few years about how brief this life can be.
The length of time we all have on planet Earth is so uncertain. With the help of the excellent care by the staff and my doctors in Midland, I’m home once again.
God, in his infinite wisdom, has given me yet another chance at life and I intend to make the most of it.
Back then I thought I could handle anything life threw at me, but everyone around me in the family could see how much my breathing had deteriorated over the years. I just didn’t want to admit it.
It is easy to be complacent – and stubborn. I am a former long-time smoker, from the “Mad Men” 60s era, when everybody lit up morning ‘til night. You just never realize, or admit to yourself what you might be doing to your body in the meantime. After all those health risks are for everybody else not you, right?
Long story short? I discovered I just can’t push myself anymore and if I want to stick around – I do – I needed to slow down and take care of myself.
Problem is I’m not in my forties anymore, not even close.
That first wake-up call in 2015, I completely lost two days and two nights from my life, and found out a bit later that I almost lost all of the time I have left as well. Daughter Lisa took my hands in hers and said through the tears, “I’m just not ready to lose you yet Mom.”
She said if I had waited any longer “to do something,” I wouldn’t be here now at all.
That is when I started the long haul back to “healthy” hopefully. And since then, I have had to learn how to breathe correctly, eat correctly and take better care of myself for my own sake as well as for my family. I just didn’t want to see that look on my son and daughter’s face again for a long, long time.
I want to be here to see all my grandchildren walk down the aisle, if that is their lot in life, or see them in a career they love if that is where life will be taking them. Whatever their choices are, I want to be there to see it happen.
I want to spend some quality time enjoying life, instead of always worrying over what I have to do next.
I want years and years left to spend with the love of my life.
God willing, some of this will come true. I know I must remember to be grateful for whatever I am given from here on out – even if it only means taking a little extra time out to “smell the roses.”