The known- my adult son shortly will mark two years sobriety. He has had a road with rocks, turns, twists, ravines, downright ditches. He has had some dark days in his thirty some years, but now - he has a family, he is succeeding at a wonderful job, he's been promoted, he's been victorious over a rotten gene pool. He is sober. I am both relieved and proud.
The second is a 17 year old whose mother I happened to "e-meet" on the Sudden Cardiac Arrest website. Her 17 year old boy survived SCA with limited damage. He is struggling with all the adjustments; he has had to give up his sports passion, he cannot participate in the contact sports he loves.
He is furious; he is furious with his doctors, at his situation, at his implanted defibrillator. I ache for him; he is so pissed; he sees the ICD not as a lifesaver but somehow as the cause of his new limitations. He has threatened to find a doctor who will remove the defibrillator when he turns 18.
I empathize with him and with his terrified mother. It's awful to feel the loss of control, the cold icy fear about the SCA having happened and the ever-present dull dread that it may happen again. I know we survivors should all be grateful and many days I am. But there are days of being so pissed off, we need not to talk to people; we need to keep that rage contained.
I struggle and I have the skills and experience of an adult. Even so, this has certainly been the most difficult challenge of my life. I ache for the young man who has to cope with this, to wrestle it to the ground at 17 - the world is black and white, the skills are limited, the impulses are huge, lashing out feels wonderful if only for a minute.
These two young men gave me pause.
