The cynical optimist

This is not an update I’d ever thought I’d be writing, not something I ever thought would be in my story, but a week ago today, as of writing this I suffered a stroke, thankfully a minor one, thankfully one that has left almost no lingering side effects except for some occasional numbness in my right ring finger.

I spent three days in the hospital, underwent several tests trying to determine what happened while also trying to rule out all other possibilities besides the clear and obvious one. I had stopped taking my blood pressure medications. I hadn’t taken any of them in over 6 months, and it appears not taking them, as well as not taking care of myself as well as I should led to me having a stroke.

I’m going to go into some detail of the symptoms and tell what I experienced because I got lucky, and because maybe someone out there will read this and if it were ever to happen to them, they may get the prompt medical attention they need because they’ll know how to respond. So, if anything, medical is a trigger for you, you may want to stop reading this…

At around 3:30 a.m I was just signing off of my computer and transitioning to my bed, when almost immediately upon laying down my right arm went numb, my heart started to race and I’m the type of person to immediately jump to the worst-case scenario so fearing a stroke I tried to speak, and the words came out slurred, so I started to panic, and that brought on difficulty breathing. I jumped out of my bed and made my way to my parent’s room to make them aware that I needed immediate medical attention but by the time I reached their room the event was over, I could speak again, a few seconds later my heart stopped racing and I could breathe easier the only thing left as a reminder of what had just happened was the numbness in my ring and pinky fingers on my right hand. Now this is where I went wrong, I’m lucky that nothing worse transpired after this but I went back to my room and continued talking to a friend online as if nothing had happened, as soon as my parents woke up however, I told them what happened, and they brought me to the Emergency room.

When it comes to a stroke every minute counts, and I gambled with my life by waiting until they woke up to let them know that something happened, if anybody is reading this, and this happens to you, Call for help and get medical attention. I got lucky, please don’t take the same gamble that I did.

But this is where I want to sort of shift gears, to talk about a realization that I had while in the hospital room on the first night, as my phone was flooded with messages from friends, some new, some that had been recently rekindled.

I spent a better part of a decade isolating myself, letting friendships fizzle out…until all I had was my family, and for a long time I truly believed that was okay. That it was okay if I was alone because then I could live up to the promise of my life, first, do no harm.

“I’m like. Like. I’m like, a grenade Mom. I’m a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, Okay…I just want to stay away from people and read books and think and be with you guys because there is nothing I can do about hurting you; you’re too invested, so just please let me do that, okay?”

The fault in our stars

I was treating myself like the above quote. Like I was going to crash and burn at some point and the less people I disappointed, the less people I hurt…the better.

But what I’ve been learning over the past year or so is that…that isn’t a life worth living.

Life is fucking messy, people are going to get hurt no matter how hard you try, you can try to minimize it, but being hurt is the price of living, and while it sucks in the moment it is worth it in the end.

I spent a lot of that first night in the hospital beyond grateful that I had spent the last year or so trying to undo that thinking, trying my best to reach out to old friends and making new ones, because this whole experience while bad, was made way easier because of the friends I had, because I wasn’t shouldering the burden alone, because I had people who cared about me.

I am lucky. I made every mistake in the book. From isolating myself, to not taking my medications and not taking care of myself, to waiting 2 almost 3 hours before getting medical attention…I am lucky that this didn’t turn out way worse than it did, so if you take anything from this at all take this:

1.) Take your medications.

2.) If you experience any symptoms of a stroke, get medical attention immediately

3.) Make friends, allow yourself to be open to people, you may get hurt but it’s a risk worth taking, because the alternative is so much worse. Trust me, I’ve been there, I’ve been alone and this new life that I’ve been given, this second chance is going to be so much better and so much brighter not because of anything I’m doing but because of my friends. I am grateful to every single one of them, and if there is an off chance that any of you are reading this….

Thank you for everything…I will never be able to properly tell you how much you all mean to me; you’ve made me and my life so much better.