Two and a half years ago, I almost died. I almost took my last breath, and said my last words.
And then I didn’t. I’m still kicking, and I am grateful everyday.
My dance with death came during a surgery, and things got a little out of wack, especially with my breathing. I wrote the below post for Team Trust, and it still resonates.
I was thinking about this post recently, and figured I would republish it with some thoughts. The goal, I hope, is to help you gain an appreciation for those you and your organization serve, and to see the good in people when you are telling their stories.
Often, people can’t see beyond my disability and the many medical scares I’ve had. I understand these medical scares are not common for people my age, but my life exists outside the hospital. I do great things, and have awesome friends with disabilities who can often be seen on ESPN, NBC and other national networks.
Some people have offered pushback to my posting about my time in the hospital. They say I am not being true to the messages I put out, and that I am only feeding into the belief that disabled people are only in the hospital.
I understand, and I hear them. However, it is true that disabled people may statistically spend more time in the hospital than others. That’s the nature of it, but there’s more to our stories. (You can learn how to tell great stories of disabled people in my Disability Marketing Guide, and you can find great tricks to immediately learning about the disabled people you work with you.)
Here, alas, is my post from May 8, 2021. I wrote from the hospital …
Life is no guarantee.
When your life comes into question, you begin to appreciate the little things: From colors and food, to kindness, air and humanity. It’s all part of the life we were given.
I have been hospitalized for nearly three weeks now. I am recovering quickly.
Interestingly, it took 2 hours to correct my two broken bones in surgery. It took two days for surgeons to remove the breathing tube from my throat.
I have scoliosis. It causes the curvature of the spine, and it affects my airways (throat). Doctors have long feared operating on me. My back has curved more with age, and my childhood doctor, who operated on me many times before I turned 21, blatantly said a breathing tube could now sever my spinal cord in my next surgery. In other words, the breathing tube could kill me.
This was on my mind and my parents’ minds as I headed to surgery a couple weeks ago: Will I survive? Do I need a Will or Power of Attorney at age 25? I don’t know. I broke two bones, and the uncertainty about my future came into the present. To top it off, I was transferred to a hospital I had never been to. We did not know how familiar they were with my disability — Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) — spine and airways. OI is a brittle bone disease often coupled with scoliosis.
I met with a number of surgeons and anesthesiologists about my neck, and the implications of my surgery. We took X-rays of my throat, and a surgeon shined a light down my windpipe before surgery. It all looked better than expected.
Yet, all of our discoveries did not solve all of our problems. Surgeons tried five different times to place a breathing tube down my throat. My throat began to swell up; I struggled to breath independently.
I was deemed to be in a “critical” condition, and I was wheeled to the ICU. As I moved from one unit to the other, I was surviving via an oxygen mask that a person manually squeezed air into.
Eventually, I came to, and I started breathing on my own.
My parents saw all of this before their eyes. Understandably, they were terrified. When I awoke and learned the details of the operation, I was terrified.
This is an experience my family and I will remember for our entire lives. We now have a deep, meaningful appreciation for all life gives us.
…
Wow, that’s a tough read. I am a bit surprised I wrote it with such raw emotions.
Exactly, three months after I published the original post, my father passed away. We spent many weeks together in 2021, and, for that, I am forever grateful.
