YOLO! Do it NOW!

The upheaval is a ground swell I'm not always sure I'll survive. I know I'm not the only person facing bad things. And that we all wonder why so many things rain down on us all at once. That's how I've felt since Christmas of 2020.

We went pretty much unscathed through all the months of the 2020 pandemic. And then the unexpected happened. But, it happened so slowly that it escaped me for what must have been months and months, we were later told.

My first notice was in the weeks preceding the winter holidays. My husband started making minor traffic boo boos. Crossing the line. Getting too close to people. Almost missing turns. He is a meticulous driver and often raves and rants over the stupidities of other drivers. And, yet, I missed this strong indicator that something was amiss and chalked it up to preoccupations. We all get off our mark now and then. But then he went way off the mark.

We were looking forward to our end of year, two week staycation. It has been our standard time off for the past several years because work loads and seniority of others just seemed to find us squeezed to year's end for our vacation. And it being a use it or lose it, must cash it out scenario, we always choose to take it for some much needed rest and relaxation. This past year, it saved my husband's life.

Mid-week, right before vacation started, he briefly crossed the center line. Right after that, he drifted into the other lane next to us. I thought he was going to rake our van all down the side of the car next to us. My gasp startled him and crisis was averted. However, on Christmas Day as we headed home from a movie theater outing, he crossed fully head on into oncoming traffic. My shriek triggered him to hard swerve and avoid a collision. With my heart in my throat and my stomach contents threatening to follow, I asked him to pull over. He meekly surrendered control of the vehicle. That was a big deal for him because he has a quirk about being a passenger. I asked him what was going on and he finally shared with me he thought he had been losing time but that it wasn't until just this moment, that he realized he might actually be blacking out.

The next day, I found him standing in the middle of our dining room just staring at nothing. I asked him what he was doing, he blinked, looked at me and said, "I don't remember. Oh, well, guess it wasn't important." As I watched him over the weekend, I realized that he was indeed losing time -- lots of time. I found him over and over just blankly staring or looking confused. We should have gone to the ER right then but he wanted to wait and call the VA on Monday since he was military and would have medical through them. He didn't want to run up a bill.

I was working on a garden greenhouse assembly on Monday when he called to me to come to the phone. He had someone at the VA online. She was insistent that I put my husband in the car and bring him to the hospital IMMEDIATELY. I was so stricken I abandon everything and began trying to get him in the car. He fretted, got confused, remembered, resisted, complied. We finally got there.

Due to Covid-19 restrictions, I didn't accompany him as he went inside. He immediately called me and asked what he was supposed to be doing -- that he forgot what he was supposed to do. So I reminded him he was supposed to check in at the ER and tell them about the phone call we had. Less than 30 minutes later, he was back to the car. I asked what happened and he said, "They had me make an appointment for an MRI, so I did. I come back in six weeks." I was flummoxed to say the least and somewhat irritated that the lady on the phone had scared the begeezers out of me to rush him here.

The next morning we got a call. It was the VA. My husband was NOT supposed to make an appointment for an MRI and definitely not six weeks from now. He was supposed to have had it in real time the day before. Once again, I was instructed to get him back to the hospital and this time to accompany him inside to make certain that what needed to happen took place. So, with me at his side, we got him to the proper floor and got his MRI. We also checked with his medical team to be certain it was okay to leave. They gave us clearance to go and said they would be in touch as soon as they had results. No timeline was given.

We left and went to Walmart to buy cat food. My husband does cat rescue. He takes care of a lot of cats. They eat a lot of food. So, we make cat food runs a lot. While we were out, he wanted to grab some cat food because he worried about not knowing what was going to happen. Before we could even get out of the car, his cellphone rang. It was the VA. They had the results. I watched my husband go from attentive and alert, to a slumped disaster with tears streaming down his face. The verdict was in. He had a "significant" brain bleed and a large pool of blood was putting pressure on his brain and causing the mini black outs. We were to immediately return so that he could undergo emergency surgery to stop the bleeding.

There was no brain surgeon at the VA so the surgery couldn't happen locally. But the rub was, all the hospitals that had the necessary doctors and facilities were over run with Covid-19 patients at that time. And there were no local ambulances to get him to the one facility they wanted to send him to. Everything was so surreal to me. The nearest ambulance available to answer the call was three hours from us and the hospital my husband needed transferred to was another hour and a half away. They kept my husband in a room in the ER to monitor him while I settled into the waiting room to await the arrival of the ambulance. It seemed like I blinked and the ambulance was there in less than 45 minutes. They had to have driven at an astronomical rate of speed. All I can say is, when they walked in, I saw HEROES! I was beside myself with gratitude. I watched them load my husband on the gurney, wheel him out, place him in their ambulance and jet off to the hospital awaiting him.

Late that night close to midnight, he was settled in to an assessment room in the ER. They had no where else to put him. A doctor assured me he was in good hands. It was a grueling 36 hours before I saw him again. They were supposed to be wheeling him in for his surgery which I had no way to get there in time to see him first. I would be waiting for him when he came out. I had to believe that he would come out of the surgery.

It turned out that when I arrived, his surgery had gotten pushed back for a more pressing emergency. I was able to talk to him and walk with him as they wheeled him off to surgery. It was supposed to be a simple procedure. Drill a hole. Drain the blood. Stop the bleeder. My husband with soulful eyes looked at the doctor, "Get ready doc. I'm never what they say I am. It's always different. Always." The doctor smiled, patted his hand and said, "We've got this, don't you worry." It would turn out they were both right.

It seemed the surgery took forever. Thankfully, they called half-way through the surgery to put me on alert that things were different than expected but all was going well. When the surgeon finally came out to speak, he shared that just as my husband had said, it was totally different scenario. Instead of drilling a hole, they had to open his skull. The blood clot was large, had it's own membrane and was on the inside of the skull attached to the brain. It was removed, the bleeding stopped. Unfortunately, although minimal, some brain matter was lost. But the good news was, he pulled through fine. The only concern was that the portion of the brain this trauma occurred on was his motor skills portion and it was already apparent he had some loss of strength and grip on his right side. They wouldn't know exactly what the extent of the damage to his coordination was until he fully awakened. I know I lost my color and my knees went weak. He is a football coach of only two seasons after waiting 40 years to be one. But I reminded myself, he is alive, and he is a coach, not a player. He will get through this.

I next saw my husband when a nurse came running to get me. They needed assistance in calming him. While the recovery doctor was attempting to do his vitals and make record, dear hubby was adamant he needed to go pee. He was fighting hard to get loose and get up. Of course he was not in any condition to be walking but it did provide the amazing revelation that his speech was not impaired. And except for a weak right hand, he wasn't showing any of the signs a stroke victim normally experiences. I finally convinced him that he had a catheter and that he could relax, go to sleep and let his body do what it needed to do. Eventually, he drifted to sleep.

He was in the hospital three days. All the workers on his floor were overjoyed to have a Christmas miracle. So much devastation on this floor as stroke victims cried and raged against their limitations. My husband was experiencing very little repercussions to his ordeal. In fact, in less than 10 days, other than his Frankenstein appearance of metal staples embedded along his incision on the big oval flap they had cut and lifted, he had recovered all his motor skills. Fatigue and a little brain fog was all he had left.

We marveled in our miracle. And then I saw on his cheek, a weird white ring around a flat brown mole. I suggested he mention it when he went in for a check up. Before he could say anything, they noticed. And so another flurry of health scares. He had melanoma on his face. Two surgeries so far in attempts to remove it. We are still waiting on test results to know if it finally fully removed as well as what, if any, other treatment he will have to undergo.

This health saga has brought the realization that YOLO is a real thing. You shouldn't put off living until your retirement years. You have no way of knowing whether your health will follow you to retirement. Do what you want to do as you go along. Do whatever it takes to make it happen. Yesterdays are gone. Tomorrows may never come. And if they do, they may not be what we imagined. Now is all we have. YOLO! Do it NOW!