There comes a time in our lives where we are faced with certain facts. When your mind wants to do something that your body cannot, certain things cross a person’s mind. While I can be comfortable watching others do things I cannot, at times when I have to stop and lean on the side of the bed, or the kitchen counter, because it hurts inside so bad, I start to hear the inner words coming out, I am dying. I cannot keep going on this way. Each day I lose a little bit more.
Each time I get sick, when I heal I have permanently lost two or three steps that I had before I ever caught that cold. It is a poignant feeling to realize that there may come a time where I will not be able to sit up and act like I am Ok any longer. People will notice things.
They already do, actually.
But inside I see the value of things that I can no longer take for granted. I cannot go up that flight of stairs. No theater, no baseball game.
The pain is indescribable. Not stabbing, but literally indescribable. My insides feel like they are bursting,
I get claustrophobic. I am short of breath, even though I have a cannula feeding oxygen directly into my nose, while my brain feels the cannula, my reading glasses, my gasp for breath (even though my sats may be 95%), it becomes hard to tell my body that it is operating in its normal state. This is my normal. Right now, right here, but here, there isn’t much of this left. Like I have this underwater tank on my head, I am no longer human. I have lain down on my bed and waited for my inner body to relax so that I can feel like I am getting oxygen, whether or not I actually am getting air. For me to tell my brain that, it is another story.
The very last thing I can do at that moment is answer questions, or to interact. And what happens when I cannot interact? Am I dying? Is this goth?
I call this innerspeak, and it is a personal conversation that I have with myself. I have no control over this, and even though I do not like it, the innerspeak comes to me as though I am talking silently to myself. I write about this now because I can still feel it at times. I want to get this out while I can still remember it, because I am getting stronger now and it is fading back into the dark. And that is good.
But I must be mindful just in case it rears its head again, because it may.
Since I have been in rehab, I have been physically working out and becoming stronger and at that same time my innerspeak has been fading away. So I assume it has something to do with realizations of life and death.
My innerspeak does not have anything to do with anyone else. It has only to do with me. And like a dream that starts to fade as soon as we wake, it does that too, as soon as I start to feel better. Is it God?
I am sane, and this has nothing to do with anything psychotic or paranoid or schizophrenic. There is no fear. It is like a happy/sad. It is poignant. It is as though I ask myself how long can I keep going? I can see the end as a tunnel that gets smaller and smaller. I don’t want to see the end, but if I cannot get my body to do any more, what is the point? The time between waking and the inability to move around gets closer and closer together, what is left for me? Oh I am dying, I am dying. I am totally lucid, but my body is not doing it for me. Shouldn’t I at least be dizzy? I am not. I can sit here and not move a single muscle. But what kind of life is this?
I have to talk myself down. I have to talk myself up. I look out the window and see people having a lot of fun, and I could say I have already done that, I know the feeling, so I can draw on my memories. I know how it feels to be skiing and have the air hit me in the face. I know how it feels the dive into the pool; to swim. I know what they are experiencing, as I have felt it too.
But do I want to feel it again? You bet. But can I feel it again but without pain? Not yet. Not yet.
Depression can and does start to invade my thoughts. I get asked what I am thinking. Nothing, I say. How can I say to another person that has the ability to walk freely, to run, to dance and skip, that I long to do that too, but that I would rather not cause myself any pain right now, so I am OK with sitting and watching, especially since I know how it feels because I have done it before.
Will I always have to draw on my memories?
I live vicariously.
I love my family and want to spend all of my life with them, and to think that I may not be here, well it is purely unthinkable, so I do not think about that. I will always be here. That hurts. I do not have time for emotional pain. I will not allow the emotional pain. Dealing with physical pain is enough for me. If I allow emotional pain I will surely crumble and I cannot crumble. This is not the time for that. This is the time for healing. And as long as I can keep working out and getting stronger the innerspeak gets weaker. I am good with that. But I feel I must log it here, while I still have some left in me, because I believe that after my surgery; after I get better it will be forgotten and I think it is important to know what I have been dealing with when I look back at this time.
