Day Twenty-One, In Which I Stay Home Sick

 Because of the previously discussed issues with my blood sugar, I spent yesterday at home. I caught up on some reading, did a little bit of work on some other school-related items, but mostly just chilled on the bed with the dogs. Checking my blood sugar so many times has left my fingers a little achy and I'm not noticing any real trends besides juice spiked me really hard yesterday and that I start to feel lousy at about 80. 

I did, however, give myself the space to explore my feelings about aging and health and my body. Today, they're going to tell me the results of my blood work and my brain is always preparing itself for the day that a doctor tells me, "You have X time left." 

The first time I thought I would die, I was 7. They thought I was having gran mal seizures. They thought I might have a brain tumor. They thought something might be desperately wrong with me. And at seven years old, I tried to become okay with the idea that I might die. As it happens, it was just my sugar issues kicking my butt... usually during class times when I couldn't snack.

The second time I thought I would die, I was about 12. I had developed a bump on my neck. I thought it was a mosquito bite from camp: it had been a really buggy summer. But it got bigger. I panicked and made sure to wear collared shirts every day. Finally, my mother saw it and took me to the doctor and again: they were worried it might be cancer. Surgery showed it to be a benign sebaceous cyst. I did not have cancer.

I knew my grandmother had had cysts that developed and then dissolved in/around her ears for her entire life so when I've had one of those develop, I've just set my mind to ignoring it. Maybe to my detriment but there it is.

I tried to bleed out during the birth of my 3rd child. There wasn't much time with that to consider my life or my death and as the room turned grey, I just felt tired and peaceful. I remember thinking that my midwife looked scared but the thought was... fleeting. One baby and two transfusions later, I was still there to raise my kids. (I even gave birth once more.)

The point is... I've had enough issues with my body and my blood (how are you deficient in all of these things?!) over the years that I've found myself thinking semi-often about death. When will it happen? How will it happen? Are there parameters in which I would feel more comfortable with dying? My body won't last forever, after all. And where do I go from here? Do I cease to be? Do I go to an afterlife? Do I pick a new Mummy and Daddy? And what happens to the people I left behind? Are they okay? What do I miss out on by being dead?

My husband discourages these thoughts from happening out loud or forming chunks of conversations because he thinks its morbid and it makes him uncomfortable but even in silence, I think a lot about death. And I was yesterday. Which isn't really related to covering but it is related to the mind-body connection.

Today they'll say one of three things: I'm fine and they don't know why things are askew, I'm not fine but they don't know why or how I'm not fine yet, or I'm not fine and this is what's wrong. I am finding it difficult to eat today which I'm sure won't help. I don't have to leave til more than an hour later than usual so I'm just left here with my thoughts.

I have a tshirt with a sunshine on it, a smiling one, and it says "Someday we'll all be dead." I think the message means different things to different people. In fact, it means different things to me on different days. I'm not wearing it today. I thought about it or my one that says "last responder" and has a reaper or even the one with the plague doctor that says, "but have you tried leaches." 

People die every day. Even the ones we think never will. Even us. When I think of my loved ones who have gone on, I wonder... Where are you now?


(Additionally: I am called more and more to the teachings of Ram Dass. I once had this book, a gift from my stepfather who had known the man, and loaned it out... Never got it back.)


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