Makes no sense
A blogpost should make sense, I reckon, and some of mine make sense to me, at least to me. At first, first was October 2010 when I had been medically diagnosed with “two to five months” to live and I, having lived life as a priest who had pastored any number of beloved parishioners through their end of life, decided to live into, through, experience, record, and even enjoy my own ending, started journaling it. The two to five months evaporated with a jet flight to Cleveland at 45,000 feet in an hour and forty-five minutes, numerous injections and blood draws that involved searching for a vein, forty-five minutes in a closed MRI tube with my eyes closed while the real me was on the beach at the jetties with a friend in May 1953 before graduation, several hours in the oblivion of non-existence, and waking to see Nick’s face and other beloveds beaming down at me as I exclaimed, “I’m alive!”
Now I’m wandering, see, moseying through some brambles where I’d not meant to go and it’s only Tuesday, another beautiful day. What do I remember about that week or so at Cleveland Clinic - - more later maybe, but right now I’m remembering my first day out of the ICU in my wonderful room way up high in the tower, looking out northward, Lake Erie frozen all the way to Canada, Linda noticed my monitor showing tachycardia, a-fib, and my room suddenly filled with medics and I heard my surgeon say, “We’d better take him back to the unit,” and away they wheeled me as I watched Tass having to leave for her taxi to the airport. Quickly stabilized, I stayed in the ICU another night, had a tracheotomy at some point, which in the ICU was removed and a doctor sewed up my throat while I winced in pain. I said, “That anesthetic hasn’t worked, this really hurts.” Surprised, the doctor apologized but also said, “I’ve only got a couple more stitches,” and proceeded to finish, my only pain throughout the entire adventure. I’ve told that here at least once before. Why is this on my mind? Because this week seven years ago is when all this happened, about which undoubtedly more later, memories filled with gratitude.
A gnat, or maybe it’s a fruit fly, keeps landing on the rim of my coffee mug after my every sip.
Now: walk because I’m trying to stay alive a bit longer, crash, then breakfast. Maybe a prosciutto sandwich. Extra thin 40-calorie ww bread spread lightly with - - mayo, or butter, which? Butter, I think, butter made with canola oil. And another cup of black. My prosciutto, I buy a pound at a time, sliced ham-sandwich thick, not paper-thin, at the TAFB commissary. I wish they carried di Parma, but they only have Boar’s Head and di San Daniele, so Daniele.
Like to try lamb prosciutto but haven’t seen it. Acquired a taste for prosciutto reading “A Soldier of the Great War,” one of many all time favorites.
DThos+ getting ready to walk
Now I’m wandering, see, moseying through some brambles where I’d not meant to go and it’s only Tuesday, another beautiful day. What do I remember about that week or so at Cleveland Clinic - - more later maybe, but right now I’m remembering my first day out of the ICU in my wonderful room way up high in the tower, looking out northward, Lake Erie frozen all the way to Canada, Linda noticed my monitor showing tachycardia, a-fib, and my room suddenly filled with medics and I heard my surgeon say, “We’d better take him back to the unit,” and away they wheeled me as I watched Tass having to leave for her taxi to the airport. Quickly stabilized, I stayed in the ICU another night, had a tracheotomy at some point, which in the ICU was removed and a doctor sewed up my throat while I winced in pain. I said, “That anesthetic hasn’t worked, this really hurts.” Surprised, the doctor apologized but also said, “I’ve only got a couple more stitches,” and proceeded to finish, my only pain throughout the entire adventure. I’ve told that here at least once before. Why is this on my mind? Because this week seven years ago is when all this happened, about which undoubtedly more later, memories filled with gratitude.
A gnat, or maybe it’s a fruit fly, keeps landing on the rim of my coffee mug after my every sip.
Now: walk because I’m trying to stay alive a bit longer, crash, then breakfast. Maybe a prosciutto sandwich. Extra thin 40-calorie ww bread spread lightly with - - mayo, or butter, which? Butter, I think, butter made with canola oil. And another cup of black. My prosciutto, I buy a pound at a time, sliced ham-sandwich thick, not paper-thin, at the TAFB commissary. I wish they carried di Parma, but they only have Boar’s Head and di San Daniele, so Daniele.
DThos+ getting ready to walk