Source: outofthedarkintothelight.wordpress.com
Last year I had a seizure.
I was sitting at Second Cup with my netbook job hunting and the next thing I knew, I opened my eyes and three strangers were staring at me. I was terrified and confused. They kept telling me that I had a seizure but I didn’t know or understand what was going on. I think I started crying. I definitely did at some point. One of them had my phone and asked for someone’s name to call. I told him my sister’s name, he found her number and called her. She didn’t answer her phone, but he left a message telling her what had happened. Someone had also called the paramedics and soon they had arrived.
I resisted going with them, I told them I was fine, and definitely by that point I was crying. One woman tried to help me gather my things, and make sure I took my netbook. I was incoherent. My netbook is red and for some reason I kept saying that it wasn’t mine, this one was red, mine wasn’t red. I was just so confused it was terrifying.
My seizure was caused by the antidepressants I had been taking at the time. I was hospitalized for a couple of days. I had another seizure in the hospital and my sister had the misfortune of being there when it happened. She described my eyes dilating, my lips turning blue, me foaming at the mouth as my body trembled. I wish she hadn’t been there, I can imagine how scary it must have been to witness.
This seizure was followed by a few extremely awful weeks. I was in and out of the emergency room, having been put on anti-seizure medication that made me feel extremely nauseous among other side effects. I had my driver’s license suspended, which is a precaution when someone has a seizure and it’s not yet confirmed if they have epilepsy. I had to stop taking the antidepressants cold turkey which really messed with my body and mind. I eventually switched to another antidepressant, but it was a long difficult road with weeks of pain, hospitalization, blood tests, etc. etc.
One thing I remember though, after leaving the hospital was my newfound appreciation for life. I felt grateful just to be alive, and well, and not in pain. I valued myself, my health and my life. I lived more in the moment. I invited my siblings over for lunch, I planned a get together with some old friends and coworkers. I got a kitten. I had been thinking about it for months, but I just couldn’t decide. I wanted a kitten to keep my dog company while I was at work, and I really love animals and was ready to welcome a new addition to my life. But I was always so hesitant. Not so, after this experience. I went to the vet a couple of days after leaving the hospital and I adopted an adorable kitten I now call Lily (or honeybun or pumpkin pie :)). My family and friends thought I was nuts, getting another animal despite already taking care of a dog on my own. But it was great. I love her to death and though it took a few months, she gets along so well with my dog now. He was jealous at first, but he’s definitely over it.
I also got a tattoo. I had also been thinking about this for some time. My mother passed away almost a decade ago, when I was twenty, and I wanted to honour her memory in some way. A few months after this event, I found the perfect symbol and I got my first (and so far only) tattoo.
I don’t know if I would have made those decisions otherwise, but something about the experience gave me a profound appreciation for the moment. I felt that life was too short not to seize the moment, enjoy it, appreciate it, and not take it for granted.
Now that some time has passed and I’ve gotten very far away from this experience and the associated feelings, and I’ve become very firmly entrenched in my day to day again, I sometimes look back at that time and try to remember how I felt. I want to have that same appreciation for life, for the moment and the day to day. I want to recapture that feeling of gratitude, of appreciation for my health, and of understanding its true value.
This makes me wonder how we can be grateful and maintain these feelings of gratitude without having some awful dramatic event jolt us out of our day to day.
I remember how it felt, and how wonderful it was just to be okay, and I try to hold on to that feeling.
I know some people write down all the things they’re grateful for or try to come up with one thing they are grateful for each day. That’s great, and I wonder if it’s enough. Sometimes it takes the experience of losing something to truly understand its value. For me, my health is the most important thing, and I know how awful it is to lose, and how easy it is to take for granted. I try to see my daily ‘status quo’ as something great–so that it’s not only in retrospect, after having lost something, that I appreciate it.
I’m happy to be pain free, to be healthy, and really just to be alive at this moment.
Unlearning the Fear 