Perfect Day

Those of us who have had visits with death - surviving Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) or something else along those lines --- we don't need much help finding joy in our days. We find frustration, anxiety, pain, fear, to be sure, but we also find joy in places we never looked before.

Yesterday I had a perfect day. Worked for much of it, but then broke off early to meet a friend with a boat. (This is heaven on earth - friends with boats. Much better than actually owning a boat, I think). Granted, I now live in a place I find spectacular in its physical beauty - created by the shores on salt water. For me, there will always be a special magic to 'water-you-can't-see- the-other-side-of.'

So off we went on the friend's boat heading northwards in the intracoastal waterway. It's a small boat, but on a calm day with winds from the right direction, it can safely go into the ocean. And into the ocean we went. North again. Past undeveloped land, which is also magic on the Atlantic.

We then anchored on the ICW side of one undeveloped island, trekked over and swam and body- surfed until it almost began to get dark....That incredible time of day. While you're in the ocean, you watch (or try to watch) as dusk takes the horizon away.

Didn't see another soul, not even another boat.

Just us, birds, jumping fish and the joy of endless water.

Back onto the boat and headed home as night fell.

Perfect day. Boat, salt water, quiet, empty beach, great company.

One gift from SCA - we will never take a day like that for granted.

Fear and Eleanor Roosevelt

I met a woman recently who said she read that Eleanor Roosevelt said "Every day, we should do something that frightens us".

My first thought was geez, must we fill each day with an unpleasantness??

The second, always better, thought was: Those of use who survive SCA (or experience death as a temporary state) would have very little trouble adhering to Eleanor's advice.

If you come back after SCA --- fears abound; they jump out from around corners, they lurk in the most unexpected places. We tackle them and wrestle them to the ground one by one. There may be one or two that win out (I still can't quite bring myself to scuba dive).

My latest facing-fear-story sounds dumb, but here goes: a mammogram. Skippy the defibrillator went through his first mammogram this week. Not my first by a long shot, but his first. And I was so frightened about it, it honestly approached terror. It took everything I had in me not to cancel the appointment.

Disproportionate fear. Mammograms are never comfortable, but I just couldn't quite envision how all that pulling, tugging and tough compression would happen without "breaking" Skippy or setting him off. (and unlike actual people, if the anthropomorphized Skippy gets 'set off', it means the defibrillator fires). I haven't experienced a fire (yet) and I deeply dread it.

I didn't cancel the appointment and the tech was sympathetic, understanding, skilled and patient. The test does get done a little differently on that side to avoid "disturbing" Skippy. But aside from the fear, it was moderately more challenging than every other mammogram.

But fear is lethal. Fear may lead us to poor choices (and sometimes to good choices, admittedly). It is uncomfortable, unsettling and can invoke our flight response. The desire to cancel that appointment was not insignificant.

But I remembered Eleanor.

I was proud of myself for not cancelling. One more fear wrestled to the ground.

The Pressure of Survival / The Right to Goof Off

Surviving Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) puts you into a very small club. I've been told that the survival rate is 2% (but then someone corrected me and said it was actually 3% - hardly a comforting difference to me). Whether it's 2% or 3% or 4%, it's a very small group. 96-98 out of 100 people who experience SCA die - permanently die, not just have a brush with death. Really die. Finito. End of the line. Not coming back no more.

But I didn't, and I have online acquaintances who didn't either - we are in the 2%. In the weeks immediately after the SCA when I was having constant (or it felt constant) contact with various medical personnel, I heard over and over references to destiny -

- God must have had a plan for you

- God wasn't finished with you yet.

And then even more references to what (to me) feels like some pretty significant expectations:

- Oh, this experience must give you a profound sense of purpose

- You are here for a reason

- It must change your entire perspective on what is important.

Well, yes and no. And while I know it is unseemly to complain about the after-math of survival, all of the above adds up to a burden. Or at least pressure. Not that I have ever been a total goof-off, but if I wanted to be, how on earth could I possibly justify it now? Did we lose that right?

Yes and no. Sure, I have times of profound introspection about how I want to spend my days that sometimes feel absolutely borrowed, BUT I also still get cranky waiting in a slow- moving checkout line. So the SCA survival hasn't completely changed my perspective. Just a bit, here and there.

But when people ask me these questions, sometimes it feels like pressure. Like I don't deserve to goof off, or if I do, even the goofing off must be profound. Can't be just regular, old-fashioned goofing off, it would have to be "pondering the essence of the universe" or "cherishing all the earth has to offer".

Sometimes, I just goof off. Throw off the mantle that because I got so flipping lucky 9.5.09 that I am now a deeper person or at minimum have an obligation to lead a deeper life.

Sometimes yes, sometimes not.

Failing and Perspective

I failed a bar exam. South Carolina no less. I have passed the only other two I have taken (Virginia and NC), but failed this one. Will re-take it in a few months. Unlike the more civilized CPA exam where I hear that one only retakes the portions one failed - in Bar Exam world, you start from square one. I have to pay a new application fee, get new fingerprints, new affidavits from people attesting to my acceptable character and fitness to practice SC law, and then take the whole damn thing again.

My issue with the SC exam was not the exam - it was that I had awful trouble getting motivated to study. The first one - in Virginia - the panic is so great that motivation was not an issue. If you don't pass that first exam, you don't get a license and you can't practice law. All that time in school, all that expense.... And when I took NC, I was less motivated to be sure, but I wanted to relocate and would not begin the process until I got my NC license. Passed that one too.

But taking the SC exam is for business reasons, and they just weren't compelling enough, apparently. I studied, but not nearly at the same level. When I received my rejection letter last week, I estimated that I missed passing by 2 points out of approximately 800. Crap.

To help with motivation this time, I'll post the rejection letter in my office, and maybe keep track of how much money the re-test will cost.

I was not surprised by failing; during the THREE DAY exam, I knew I was making up some SC state law - I knew my knowledge on SC insurance was far too slight -- I knew I was in trouble.

I've told friends that I could also blame the ex for so disrupting my life last summer and fall or I could blame Skippy, the implanted defibrillator. After all, the SCA was 9/09, and I started studying a mere 4 months later - and certainly there were and are days still when I am stunned to have gone through the experience. Stunned to have come that close to death (or to come back from death as a follower friend says), stunned to have survived it , apparently nearly entirely unscathed, stunned again about how astonishingly adaptable we humans are. Who the hell can come to terms with something like this? We can. We do.

Now if I can just pass the damn exam.

Still

Still looking for Piedmont plates.
Nuts.

Nothing and Everything Changes

Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) changes everything. And then it changes nothing.

The initial aftermath is so stunning, shocking (no pun intended), far beyond unsettling. And not the purely physical manifestations - they are their own separate category. But mentally and emotionally, one starts with the MD or other clinicians explaining - sort of - what has happened.

And so it begins. First you deal with the immediate crap of it; and in my case, the physical 'crap' was really negligible. Relatively speaking, of course. Relative to others with SCA. Then, the mental and emotional adjustments begin. Initially, you think your whole world just changed. Everything in your whole world just changed. But then again - did it?

I was mortal before SCA. Granted, I didn't muse as often about my mortality as I have done post- SCA, but I don't muse about it daily anymore. It's a little more immediate than it was pre-Skippy, but not dramatically so. At least not today. Some days I guess I still feel like my mortality sits down with me for a visit - but not every single day.

I see risk a little differently. I should have worn a bike helmet before and I should wear one now. Difference is now I do. My risk of falling off the bike is a tiny bit higher (I'll fall off if Skippy the defibrillator fires). The damage from falling now v. then is the same. But I promised to wear one now, so I do.

And I worry that even with a medical green light, I may not find the courage to scuba dive again - that makes me as sad as anything. That is a risk and a fear I have not yet wrestled to the ground.

I never liked ladders; always felt nervous. Still do.

I struggled then with my weight. Still do.

Is my life shorter? Maybe yes, maybe no. Who knows?

Perhaps that is the most profound change from the SCA. A deep-seated certainty that we know nothing. And being at peace with that. Finding a joy in that. In a way, it is astonishingly liberating.

Reading Horoscopes a Day Late

Yes, I've been lax -too long since the last posting here.

And this one has nothing directly to do with SCA or near-death or those first ten minutes.

I just sent a horoscope to a friend who shares my "sign". Yes, I think horoscopes are incredibly silly; reading horoscopes is just a waste of eyesight ---- but how bad is it to read your horoscope a day late? If I ever write that great American novel, or even a mediocre one, I'll have to get that in the title. Or perhaps it would best be the title of a country-western song. But I do sometimes read them late - I get to the paper the next day and I STILL read the silly things.

I described it to my friend as the worst horoscope in the history of horoscopes. Here it was:

Sagittarius. "If you're inhaling a whiff of ambition, you'd be wise to ignore it. It is much too easy to overestimate your abilities or [be] too enthusiastic about something that may prove to be false".

As I said when I forwarded it to my Sagittarius friend: They just should have written "Don't bother. Go back to bed. Try again tomorrow".

Yesterday, I was walking on a deserted beach (yes, we have one here - Masonboro Island) musing about my future (an endeavor not for the faint of heart if your heart has taken to stopping). I am a lawyer in my 50's. Here's the funny part - I BECAME a lawyer in my 50's. Before that, I had worked in the business end of health care. Law School was both horrible and exhilarating at this age.

I've been a lawyer nearly 2 years and my work has been business, corporate law, mostly but not exclusively for health care businesses. Yesterday, as I did what I love best - be outside on a magnificent day, surrounded by salt water, cacophony of sounds presented by birds --- feeling sand beneath my feet --- I was considering if this is the work I really want to do. I enjoy it, I think I'm pretty good at it, I can make a reasonable amount of money working not too strenuous hours, but I wonder.

Is it nuts to think about shifting gears again and doing work to protect this coast I love so much?

Thank God I didn't read that horoscope on the right day......