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 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

Okay, so I'm an official adult. A grown-up woman in her 50s. Perhaps I led a sheltered life and lacked the confidence to do things on my own. Perhaps I had parents who told me I'd never amount to anything. Perhaps I believed them. Perhaps I made some bad choices like marrying an abusive man who continually destroyed any confidence I may have had and reinforced all of my insecurities. I got a second chance at marriage and did it right this time.  Joe is a good man and we love each other more every day.  Perhaps I'm timid on the inside... Well, I'll tell you. I "grew" this week. I experienced my personal growth as the result of taking a leap of faith and a giant step out of my comfort zone. It may not sound like a big deal to most of you - who are already grown up...but the trip I took to Oregon to visit Nancy was the first time I've gone anywhere on my own. Yeah, I took the dog, but that was a first for me too. I tried to back out of the gracious invitation that Nancy extended to me; but I didn't. I went! I rented a car, packed up my suitcase and my dog and drove off up the California and Oregon coast in the pouring rain and did it! I felt so proud of myself that I even took the first step! I just told this to my husband, that the trip I took Monday through Wednesday was the first time I'd ever traveled on my own anywhere. He pooh-poohed the notion and told me, "you've done plenty of traveling on your own - all over India and the US" - uh huh, FOR WORK. Someone TOLD me to. It was my job. Perhaps this is the difference. I've been adventurous by force, adventurous because it was my job, adventurous because someone was going with me...but this - this was a whole other world for me. My first instinct was to say YES, absolutely - I'll be right up there, and I did mean it. I was so excited. Then I looked at the mileage between where I am and where Nancy's beautiful hamlet is and thought immediately to myself that I couldn't possibly undertake such a trip alone. I got scared. Seven hours of driving? I'm a very reluctant driver at best; ask Peggy or Sheri - they'll tell you. My next instinct was to figure out how to get out of it. I actually had an excuse! My sutures needed to come out on Tuesday, and so I told Nancy I couldn't make it. Then the doctor called and said she wanted the stitches to stay in longer. So? Now no excuses - thankfully. Excuses out of the way - nothing prevented me from going but my own fears. Well, I faced them and I rented the car before I changed my mind again, put my $hit in the car and I even took the dog. I've never traveled with a dog. I never even owned a dog before 2005. This is a very mellow 9-year-old Cocker Spaniel who happily panted in the back seat the whole way. It poured rain for the first few hours on the way up. I had protein-y snacks for me, water and food for Patch and 300 miles of the most beautiful coastline I've ever seen unfolding before me. Here's what I learned. I faced my fears and learned that I am capable of taking a chance. I faced my insecurities and came out the other side of this trip with a renewed sense of who I am. I learned that I CAN do things. I stepped out of my comfort zone and gained much. I made a friend. Actually, I made 3 friends...Nancy, her guy David and her dog Gypsy. Even Patch made friends. Nancy opened her heart and her home to me with grace and charm. She made me comfy. She fed me great food. She let me learn the lessons I needed to learn. She gave me the opportunity to see what a woman can do when she sets her mind to it. She empowered me. When she reads this, she'll blush - but it's true. She helped get me back on track with my food and reminded me of the tools that I learned when I first had surgery (small servings, small silverware, protein-packed goodies throughout the day). She reminded me that I have to change my mindset from losing to maintaining and gave me good ideas of how that should happen. So, I'm not too old to learn. I came back from this adventure with a renewed and upbeat spirit when I had been feeling lost and beaten down by all that's gone on with this move and my work difficulties. I've got clarity and focus back where they belong. So, we might be in our 50s and 60s. The learning is not over. It never will be over. We all took giant steps with considering, consulting, scheduling and undergoing weight loss surgery. What I found out is that the surgery was only the first step. It's what I do with the REST of my life that matters. WLS gave me the second chance at life - I don't plan on wasting it being afraid any more.