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My Alive Day, 9/20/09
Oct 05, 2009
y "Alive Day" - September 20, 2009. Share Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 10:56pm | Edit Note | Delete Alive Day. 9-20-2009.Last week, I didn’t know what an “Alive Day” was. Today, I am writing about my own Alive Day experience.
Here’s what I know:
Your Alive Day is the day from which the rest of your life springs. It is the birthday that counts.
Your Alive Day is the day you lived through, when the opposite seemed the only option. It is the day of a bullet, a crashing of metal, a plane falling out of the sky or a life threatening illness. A day of successful Heimlich maneuvers.
Your Alive Day is the day the recovery begins for the thing that didn’t kill you. That is not to say it did not hit its mark. It did hit the mark. It caught you. It just didn’t kill you. At this point, my immediate urge is to thumb my nose at it and say, “Nah, nah, nannah, nah!” But I don't want to piss it off.
If you have an Alive Day, you have survived something. I learned about Alive Days from my Air Force Son, SSgt. Rob, who knows too many people with Alive Days (and many who did not get an Alive Day, just their Last Day.
Here’s what happened on September 20, 2009, my Alive Day.
Scene 1: Takes place in Big Bear Lake and Big Bear City, CA. It was the best day! Rob was home from Vegas. Joe didn’t have to work. Victoria didn’t have to work. Vic and Shaun’s new house in Sierra Madre is not only gorgeous. It is decorated beautifully. It’s a 30’s-era California house with the largest tree in it I have ever seen. Shade everywhere. This is a great place for the “kids.” We spent the day of the 19th with Victoria, Shaun and Sam. Rob and Shaun threw the football for hours. Johnny wanted to spend every minute with Sam. Shaun and Rob talked about…don’t say it all together now… MUSIC! Victoria yanked juice-dripping grapefruit, orange-sized/colored lemons, some avocado that is not Hass and whose name escapes me. There are a lot of avocados in those trees. Victoria found out about it on that day. Last, but not least, a perfect Mission fig came off the tree and Joe was presented with it. We walked to Sierra Madre’s Town Center, ate pizza, had a great salad and played with Sam. Rather, Sam played with us, but it was fun. We brought the dog, Zach, with us. It was a good weekend.
Scene 2: Uncle Donald and Aunt Madeline’s house. We were in the area. Our trees had borne fruit. We brought down apples from our trees. They are a Coppi in Arcadia family fave. The fruit o’the day. After the fencing footwork demonstration that Aunt Madeline asked for, we left for home. We got home late and went to bed.
Scene 3: Good Ole Whispering Pines, Big Bear City, CA. I worked a little on Sunday morning just because I could until everyone started making feed-me noises. We went out and about in Big Bear and tried to get haircuts for Rob, Johnny and me. Rob convinced Johnny and Joe that we could go to a “teppan-yaki” restaurant or , a Japanese Steakhouse, where they cook the food on hot grills around your table with flair and an element of freshness that makes it even more fun. We went to Fuji Japanese Cuisine at the right time, got great seats and were served fast. The place filled up, so things were really going our way.
It’s a good thing Rob convinced Joe that teppan-yaki food is not the Japanese food he didn’t enjoy once upon a time and that the spectacle will make Johnny’s eyes light up! They did. It did. Delicious and rewarding. We will repeat this meal once a year on birthdays, as was done with my a few times in childhood at Benihana. It was one of the best weekends ever. Everyone in our little family was seen and hugged. I guess that’s a good last day to have. A day to have no regrets about. My Alive Day. No regrets.
Two hours after the delicious Japanese lunch, I started feeling yucky. Tummy-griping gas pains, nausea, crampy, awful pain. I went from feeling like I needed to excuse myself to feeling as if I needed to take some stomach remedy. I thought I was having gas pain. The gas pains rapidly mutated into fetal position-inducing writhing on the floor lower abdominal pains and then the upper abdominal stuff kicked in. I was a chorus of groans, growls, retches and downright hollering. It was kicked around by the guys that it might just be food poisoning. We ate the same stuff? Does anyone feel anything but well-fed? …and more than a little disconcerted that mom is rolling around on the floor hollering????
By the time Joe, Johnny and Rob realized I might be “sick” and not have food poisoning, they scooped me off to the local hospital with the bare minimum necessary and with no further delay. This whole process escalated from gas bubble to full-blown abdominal crisis in about 20 minutes.
Big Bear Community Hospital District. The guys win and don’t let me just stay on the floor doing my new, noisy dance and dying in the process.. They scooped me off the floor, out of the house and into the car and I’m a little fuzzy after that. There was pain medicine. There were IV lines. After x-ray and MRI or whatever scan it was, they decided it was no other than a small bowel obstruction. I could not come back from this without surgery.
There was talk of other hospitals like St. Mary’s Long Beach and Loma Linda University Medical Center. Where to go. What’s the insurance doing anyway. Joe was busy fielding calls and making plans to get me somewhere. Big Bear knew I was too sick to stay. They don’t have a full-time surgeon who could follow up on an hourly basis for my status. They send the sickest out. I was one of those people.
Scene 5: BBCH. You’ll go by ambulance to Long Beach. Ok. I’ll be asleep, so who cares. Just get me there cuz I’m getting scared here.
Scene 6. BBCH. “We are from Mercy Air. We’re flying you off the mountain to Long Beach Memorial. You’re too sick to stay on the mountain. You’ll be there in a few hours. Don’t worry.” Don’t WORRY!?
Step back 20 years: My last unfortunate helicopter ride was with Rob at the age of 1 or 2, some guy who worked at the Sikorski plant who wanted to show his 5-year-old boy what a helicopter ride was, dammit. Cue screaming, panicking 5-year-old child. Cue disappointed father. Cue sleeping Robbie. Cue Cheryl with writhing, screaming hysterically or whatever work is its superlative. This kid tried to crawl INTO my SKIN. We get into the copter assorted to weight. An aircraft thing… The copter pilot was a master of adrenaline manipulation. It was not fun. I expected less from this flight in terms of fun.
On to the gurney. Into the copter. “It’s gonna be a little loud, Mrs. Blake. You will need to wear these headphones as well as your oxygen mask.” Here we go! WhupWhupWhup where the heck am I (is it over soon?) WhupWhupWhup, snort, (oh $hit, we are still in the sky), WhupWhup, snore, snort, shiver, PRAY, Whup, Whup, Whup, banking turns over Long Beach. Did I say a bad word before? I meant to say a bigger one, but my mind couldn’t come up with one. Oh, that was the most “exciting ride” of my life and can wait a very long time to experience it again. Thank you, Mercy
Air, for taking such good care of me. Your role in my Alive Day is critical.
I cannot hear a helicopter in the last week that I do not FEEL viscerally.
We arrive. I’ve survived so far! We are in the helicopter corridor of the hospital and the elevator is locked. We wait. I snore.
Scene 7: Intensive Care at St. Mary’s. I was in this world of light, sound, swooshing, whooshing, beeping and running water. I was not coherent for more than a moment. My surgeon came to see me. “I am Dr. Stanczyk. You are very sick. I will fix your problem. We are going into emergency surgery in a while. It will not look pretty. It will not do anything but save your life and immediate situation. Are you clear?” I acknowledge, authorize and have given informed consent. I know I am going to have a zipper installed in my midsection.
The day of 9/20/09, my Alive Day, has come and gone. I have an Alive Day.
The next few scenes are garbled and unclear. No coherent thought emerged from me for 4 days, I think. I dreamed like crazy, though. Drugs, is that what they do?
I woke up and knew I was alive, but not enjoying it so much. Being aware and being intubated is not a combination I will not willingly (although this was not willingly either) submit to.
More later. There is a couch with my name on it.
Sitting up is a beautiful thing, but it takes a lot out of me.
I love you all. The names are of people who need to know what's going on, but I haven't got that much in the way of sit-up tokens yet.
Cheryl
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About Me
Eureka, CA
Location
Surgery
10/03/2005
Surgery Date
Jul 25, 2005
Member Since
Before & After
rollover to see after photo
3 Weeks before Surgery 9/10/05
240lbs
September 4, 2006 - 11 months and 1 day - 110 pounds, 10 lb below goal
130lbs
