Annoying Attribution: Who Gets Credit for Surviving SCA?

We survivors of Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) have strong bonds with one another.  We are members of a very small club - over 95% of people who have SCA die that day.  Big number.  Really, really big number.

Strong bonds, yes.  Agreement, no.  I just read another new survivor story - as with all the stories, your heart races a little with the shared fear of that day; you are grateful they survived;  then the fear and gratitude mix together -- and selfishly, above all else, I am glad I survived.  I can't turn away from the stories, but they are not easy, breezy reads.  They come with anxiety - mixed with some empathy, but self-centered anxiety all the same.  Then the last paragraph of this one erased my anxiety and replaced it with silent irritation.  I'd never respond, never offer criticism on that site, but this is my  blog, so here goes....

This person,  we shall call NewOne - this NewOne closed (as many do) with a rousing, ringing, soaring statement of certain knowledge and gratitude that the "Lord Jesus" had provided the expert CPR done by the husband,  had been responsible for the quick response by the EMTs, had guided the quick and effective use of hypothermia to reduce the body's need for oxygen, and so forth.  "Lord Jesus" had directly and purposefully done each and every one of those things ----just to save the life of NewOne.  To take NewOne out of the 95% and into the 5%.

Annoys the hell out of me.  My first thought is shit, I hope that the loved ones of non-survivors who turn to that site for comfort don't read this tripe.  The second thought - really???    Lord Jesus did all that to save you, but Lord Jesus elected to let B*, S*, M* and the other 95% die?  Because why?  Lord Jesus saw something in you, NewOne, that was somehow lacking in those who die?

I understand people have that kind of faith, that rock solid belief in a God who intervenes regularly in their daily lives.  The God who saves them from tripping down the stairs; who saves them from  that car running a red light, who saves them from a runaway train or shopping cart, who enables them to pass that exam (always wondered if he/she worked on a curve for exams?) - they believe in a God who rescues them over and over again on each and every day.  I don't believe that (obviously).  I believe in a Divine, but not one who is messing around haphazardly in daily life - oh, I'll electrocute that one with faulty wiring, but let this one live.  I'll zap that one with a lightening bolt.  Tornado slaughter here, blue skies there.  Oh yeah - don't let's forget Tsunami's - barely anyone gets out of that alive.  I find it fundamentally absurd.  

I am far more comfortable believing in happenstance than I am in a God or "Lord Jesus" who denies life to 95%.  It's my blog and I'll be sacrilegious if I want to.

Irritated.  Annoyed.  Still grateful for and acutely aware of my extraordinary good fortune on September 5, 2009.  The dice rolled my way on that date.

Photo owned by Rosendahl:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosendahl/2111805581/in/photostream/

What We Envy

Envy.  One of the seven deadly sins.  It is the more  kind-hearted, passive, less harmful cousin to the malice of jealousy.  Jealous husbands kill, envious girls quietly weep or deeply sigh.

I have always envied those with long legs, good singers, 20/20 vision -  the normal list.  I have envied those with that absolute, rock-solid, unquestioning faith.  Faith in whatever - God, church, the power of donuts - absolute faith.  I have never had it and never will.  I am a questioner, and was - even as a kid.  I remember the nuns "explaining" the Holy Trinity - Father, Son, Holy Ghost.  I didn't buy it - it's three or it's one - it cannot be both (literal even at a young age). Challenged the nuns, then the parents, finally a priest. Always the same answer - what I came to see as the ultimate punt -  "Marcia, it's a divine mystery that Catholics just believe".   I envy those who believe that sort of thing. So simple, so comforting to them, or so it seems.

I envy fast metabolisms.  I envy people who naturally eat only when hungry. I envy smooth, easy, powerful golf swings.  Still envy long legs.

And now a new one. Well, two.  I envy people whose hearts have not taken to randomly stopping, that's for sure.  But I now also envy those with weaker memories. (Apologies to my SCA anoxic brain injury friends).  I have long relied on what has been an excellent memory - it got me through college, has been extremely useful in the career, helped me win more than a fair share of marital arguments, and was the key to passing multiple bar exams.  Now I want a lousy memory. At least selectively.  We all have moments of agonizing regret - you don't get into your 5th decade without regret - I would like to forget two moments in my life.  Two days.  I can't eradicate the events, but I would like to eradicate the memory.
One was long, long ago - I was a teen, and I wronged a friend.  It remains the worst thing I have ever done to another person.  I have come to terms with it, but I wish I could also simply fail to remember it.  I remember every moment of that day, and I would rather not.

Then the second, more recent - I harmed only me.  My failure here was in not tending my self-respect, in making a set of poor choices and emotional investments, in yielding when I should not yield, in taking far less than I deserved,  in allowing denial to take charge for hours, or maybe it was even weeks.  Guilty of not outgrowing certain impulses, of being f__ing human.  I would like a mulligan, a do-over. But I can't change it, I can't fix it -  I accept that.   But I would greatly prefer not to remember it.  The guy (oh, of course it's a guy)  has almost certainly forgotten what pieces he remembered; his memory is astonishingly porous.   Mine is not. I remember every single minute of that day.  And I would rather not.  I'd like an eraser please.

I'd rather not remember.
I envy and wish for a crappy memory for the first time in my life.  Or at least a selectively crappy one.
The antidote for envy is gratitude; I'll be working on that.

Skies and Birthdays

The sky. The sky is a gift. Tonight, it is one of those very very black skies offset with grey-ish white whispy clouds that partially obscure a brilliantly white not-full moon. That's the best description I can come up with and it falls so far short that it's embarrassing.

One day this week, I spent an early evening out on the friend's boat. We went out at around 4 and got back in around 9 - after dark. No swimming that day, just a slow, lazy cruise. Another perfect day. Your breath is taken away at each turn; ocean breakers in the distance, pristine marsh grasses, dolphins playing nearby -- just a magnificent day. And as we eventually turned for home, the sky... It was a mixed sky - some clouds, some sun and the colors gradually turned brilliant - so many shades of fierce red and pink and white slowly, slowly turning to black.

We both were transfixed by it - without comment for the longest time. Finally I said that it was one of those skies that it was wasteful to attempt to photograph - no picture ever could get it. An almost trite thought, admittedly.

I have just one word for a day like that - gratitude. Grateful for my friend, for his boat and for those skies. Grateful to be here - first to "be" after a year and also to be "here" in this spectacular place. And again, so grateful for my friend.

PS. Skippy's birthday is past. Tomorrow is old-what's-'is-name's birthday (aka the Ex). This will be, I think, the first time in 27 years that I will let it pass un-marked. No card, no call, no email. Before, even in our separated/divorced years, I always contacted him; I dreaded the idea that he would get no cards or no calls. This year, at long last, it just doesn't matter to me.
I believe the excision/exorcism is complete.

Perfect Day

Those of us who have had visits with death - surviving Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) or something else along those lines --- we don't need much help finding joy in our days. We find frustration, anxiety, pain, fear, to be sure, but we also find joy in places we never looked before.

Yesterday I had a perfect day. Worked for much of it, but then broke off early to meet a friend with a boat. (This is heaven on earth - friends with boats. Much better than actually owning a boat, I think). Granted, I now live in a place I find spectacular in its physical beauty - created by the shores on salt water. For me, there will always be a special magic to 'water-you-can't-see- the-other-side-of.'

So off we went on the friend's boat heading northwards in the intracoastal waterway. It's a small boat, but on a calm day with winds from the right direction, it can safely go into the ocean. And into the ocean we went. North again. Past undeveloped land, which is also magic on the Atlantic.

We then anchored on the ICW side of one undeveloped island, trekked over and swam and body- surfed until it almost began to get dark....That incredible time of day. While you're in the ocean, you watch (or try to watch) as dusk takes the horizon away.

Didn't see another soul, not even another boat.

Just us, birds, jumping fish and the joy of endless water.

Back onto the boat and headed home as night fell.

Perfect day. Boat, salt water, quiet, empty beach, great company.

One gift from SCA - we will never take a day like that for granted.

Bird Population

I e-met a woman the other day who is struggling with what she calls post-traumatic stress disorder 2 years after her SCA. She faces depression and with some significant physical limitations.

It may me realize yet again how extraordinarily lucky I was on 9/5/09. As my sister says - this is why we buy lottery tickets; the percentages alone don't tell the entire story of chances and possibilities, just the probabilities. (And I sincerely hope my economics professor nephew never sees this; I can hear the groan all the way from UC Davis). But the odds for me were - 98% die after SCA AND of the 2% who survive, the overwhelming majority suffer brain damage and/or physical damage and long rehab processes. I suffered neither.

Luck, luck, luck - I went to the ER 10 minutes before the SCA, so my luck was having and recognizing and responding to the instinct to go. Once there, my survival and lack of physical and mental damage were just the geography - how close to paddles I was. I was awake, joking and in full command of whatever brain power I had before the SCA - in minutes. (Admittedly, the jokes were not good ones and my delivery was probably poor as well). And physically, aside from blood pressure that took weeks to settle down - no damage. And remarkably, virtually no damage to the heart itself.

So I feel for the woman who struggles with depression and PTSD - we all hear all the flipping time how lucky we are and the one that really grates on me is the "God must have a plan for you". Well, if he/she/it does have a plan, it's a pretty big and well-kept secret what that might be. But my luck extends - I don't feel depressed. There are days still when I am just stunned that this happened - that I got that close to death and came through as I did. I get cranky at the "God plan" crap (like he/she/it failed to make the plan for the 98%; that they were not 'worthy' of the plan? that it fell off God's to-do list that day? Nuts really).

But back to the birds of this posting title. I shared with my new e-friend that while I deeply empathize with her, I don't have to suffer the depression and symptoms of PTSD. I face and wrestle some with being pissed about the things I can't do and annoyed I have to cope with new fears, but that I also see far more birds and spectacular big skies than I ever saw before. Beautiful coastal birds and skies. Magnificent.

I rather doubt the bird population jumped on the date of my SCA, so my observation is now different. I don't think it's God's plan and I don't think my retinae somehow sharpened. While one cannot pass 24 hours every day doing nothing but feeling gratitude, I have moments of sheer joy at the birds and the big skies. (And yes, I got up during the middle of the night a month or two ago for a meteor shower...). I should probably be finding greater meaning in my new birds and skies, but today, I simply revel in the pleasure.

(And am off to find some nasty sounding meal-worms to entice bluebirds - wish me luck!)