In Which a Zombie Is Conceived
Some people call it their re-birthday. This is more fun.
A year ago today the seeds of my becoming a zombie were sown. Well, truth be told they were probably sown a few days to a week before that. If we are going to stay in this metaphor, a year ago today was the moment of conception.
Are zombies born or made? A question for another time. Moving on!
A year ago today, The Boy and I played hooky from work and went to the Royal Ontario Museum to see the Wildlife Photography exhibit. We’d spent the early parts of the weekend together, but he felt sick so I sent him back home. By Monday he was 85% back to normal — he claims he has a weak constitution, but it’s ironclad — and off we went. Halfway through the exhibit, I started feeling like I was coming down with something. I remember us sitting on a bench, each eating a small box of raisins, me feeling kinda crappy, him feeling kinda tired, and both of us feeling kinda underwhelmed by that year’s exhibit.
And then we kissed each other goodbye and he went home to his place and I went home to mine.
My next sustained memory is waking up in the ICU on March 30 with an oxygen hose attached to a hole in my throat.
Which is the most surreal (and scary) thing that’s ever happened to me.
I have a handful of memory flashes between those two dates, strewn across a three-week blank space like little dots of light.
There is one flash of being in my doctor’s office and her telling me I had the flu, but no memory of my symptoms.
I remember asking David to buy me an extra mattress topper and sending him the research I’d done Friday evening. Because I did come down with something — H1N1 flu had absolutely flattened me during that week. I’ve heard stories of how I stayed up one full night because it hurt too much to lie down, and of hitting myself because another kind of pain would be less pain (hence the mattress topper). I don’t remember that pain or anything else from that week, though.
Tag: ARDS, coma, ICU, influenza, re-birthday, the flu, ventilator, zombie birthday
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I would go to the water (weather permitting) and breathe deeply. Then, I would have a fabulous dinner (maybe ordered in) and something special to drink, because you can. And I would smile.
I always get the flu shot because there was a time I didn't. Yes, we are not going back to that again.
It IS very weird, having a period like that that's blank. I get it, to a point, because of the effect Methotrexate had on me. I have no real memories of July 2013. I was either unconscious (first 24 hours) or in such thick brain fog that I couldn't process anything, and clearly retain no actual memories of the period except, like you, odd snapshot stills that have little context.
Re celebrating, what is the thing you like MOST of all to do? Is there a way you can do an extreme version of it, in a way that makes it enhanced?
What a great idea to celebrate your own personal easter –death and rebirth, from yesterday until the end of March. I don't know how you marked the date but maybe next year you'll want to start with raisins on the bench. I don't know about money and allergies but maybe get an actual set of bookends, or light a long advent-type candle, burn a bit each day to mark the period you missed until you returned from your zombie state. Or you could have someone plant a bulb for each day you were a zombie and enjoy seeing them bloom.
I am so glad you are alive. I still tear up thinking about that time.
Go celebrate! You are such a special person to this world. You survived for a reason. 🙂