Last updated on December 19, 2023
Dear 2023, you have already been way too interesting. We’d appreciate a change to “boring” mode for the remainder of your days. And, definitely, no more near-death experiences.
We’re disappointed in you, 2023. We’re already looking ahead to 2024.
As 2023 began, we thought the year was going to be uneventful. Then, we experienced an escalating number of disruptions. Some disruptions have been minor, almost insignificant. Others have been more spectacular.
In early March, we confirmed that Leigh needs orthodontic braces, which she will receive in the last week of April. Her orthopedic team will take measurements for a new scoliosis brace in the first week of May. Leigh’s growing quickly, and her current back brace no longer fits properly.
Dental braces are nothing out of the ordinary, thankfully. Leigh’s rapid growth, however, is unusual, her orthopedic team informed us. Most girls with scoliosis wear two braces during their treatment. Leigh might end up with three, since her first brace didn’t quite last a year. As she turns 11, Leigh is 5’1” tall (156 cm) and towers over most peers.
My job search seemed to be going well. I had interviews scheduled during the time Susan and the girls would be in California visiting family. I allowed myself to believe that one of the three jobs would be a match, moving us forward.
Susan delayed the planned trip to California due to storms throughout the state and the entire Southwest region. During March, getting from our home in Central Texas to our native Central California would have been difficult, thanks to road closures. Winter storms, flooding, and mudslides led us to shift the trip to the end of May.
The girls were disappointed not to be visiting grandparents, aunts, and cousins for spring break, but it turns out the weather managed to get even worse for most of March.
We’ve noticed that when Susan is away, that’s when we have household misadventures. It’s either a cat or me, and sometimes both a cat and me, going into urgent care while Susan is in another state. This year, thanks to the weather delay, Susan was home when I ended up with a medical emergency.
Most nights, I ride the exercise bike about 30 minutes after dinner. After riding the night of March 17, I developed a headache. I get migraines, and this was no migraine. It was much, much worse. I had difficulty sleeping. The pain was intolerable by Saturday. For the first time since early December, I failed to reach my 10,000-step goal for the day. I could barely move. I slept through much of Sunday, taking painkillers and hoping my rising anxiety was merely hypochondria.
Monday, Susan scheduled a walk-in appointment for me with our health clinic network. I had to reschedule a job interview, but the pain was too great for me to do anything. I even asked Susan to drive to the medical office.
The doctor looked at my eyes, asked me about the pain, and sent us off to the nearby emergency room at a hospital. This wasn’t a trip to a walk-in clinic or corner “emergency room” that we see scattered about the Austin area. No, I was being sent to one of the larger hospitals nearby.
The ER doctors debated for a time before deciding I should at least have a basic CT (computed tomography) scan. Both ER doctors agreed this was probably nothing, but they wanted to rule out anything serious.
Two CT scans later, I was loaded into an ambulance and transported to downtown Austin for an emergency angiogram. The trip included sirens and the best time I’ve ever made from Round Rock to Central Austin via Interstate 35.
An abridged version of events: I remained in the intensive care unit for a week for what tests revealed to be a subdural hematoma and possible subarachnoid hemorrhage. There was blood around and at the center of my brain. That’s why the headache was so severe.
The ICU ward was “special” because the people admitted had similar conditions. Nurses were assigned to only one or two patients. While I was there, families visited other patients to say their goodbyes. There were several “Code Blue” alarms, signaling a cardiac arrest.
One of my nurses told me I was the first patient in the ward with whom she had conversations. I was one of the few to eat and order meals. Several nurses checked my records to ensure I was in the correct ward.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t reschedule every job interview. I managed to reschedule one for the day after I was released from ICU, but that school later scheduled my “teaching demo” for the day of another angiogram. They would only move the interview by two days, which wasn’t going to be physically and emotionally possible for me.
The bleak prognoses for subdural hematomas and subarachnoid hemorrhages were difficult to ignore. With blood in both regions, the mortality rate is 90 percent, one of the doctors informed us. Few people survive without significant impairments.
I still have a minor headache, but my most recent angiogram revealed no significant abnormalities. There was a minor issue, which will be checked again in three months. Officially, no stroke. No aneurysm. No sudden brain trauma. But, there’s no question there was significant and dangerous pooling of blood in and around my brain.
Thankfully, here I am. So, can we please move ahead without additional excitement, 2023?
Most people can imagine what has been going through my thoughts since the initial headache began. I want to be around for many, many years. I want to see the girls graduate from high school and college. I want to enjoy some sort of career and retirement.
I’m already neurodiverse enough without a stroke or aneurysm debilitating my mind and body.
As we reach the last week of April, life slowly is returning to normal. The doctors have cleared me to normal activity as long as I don’t over-exert myself. I’m supposed to work on reducing my stress, which sounds like a nearly impossible task.
Be calm. Be thankful that everything seems to be okay. Enjoy each day and stop fretting. Sure, those all sound nice, but I wanted to impress the hiring committees and receive a job offer. I didn’t want to be interviewing (badly) around a medical emergency.
Resigning myself to the aborted job search has been its own source of stress and disappointment. Teaching full-time in 2023-24 had been tantalizingly within each, so it’s been emotionally devastating. I resent the medical emergency, while I’m thrilled to be alive.
Back to writing. Back to updating some existing works and finishing others. Embrace the opportunity to keep being creative.
Susan and the girls will head for California in a month. I’ll write and work on various projects. Ideally, I’ll find the time alone uneventful. Maybe it’ll be refreshingly boring.