Probably don’t even read this one! No one will be happy by the end! EDIT: I literally just realized that this is why they put a heart monitor on me and gave me a paper that explained they did this so the ICU could monitor me remotely, since there wasn’t room in the ICU for me.

I was driving home Saturday morning, extremely jet lagged. I hadn’t been able to sleep on the plane, or in JFK’s baggage claim (weirdly enough), or on the second flight, and then I had to drive. So it had been about 24 hours, and I was in a strange state. And suddenly, a memory came back. I know it is a memory, not a hallucination.

All week, when I was meeting in person with my Tumblr team, I tried not to talk about all the bad stuff from having surgery and that whole experience. For one, I mostly didn’t want to. For another, I worried if I started, I’d never stop. For a third, there were way more important things to talk about. But one thing I reassured everyone is that while I had felt like I was going to die, I most certainly was not. I didn’t have sepsis or an internal bleed or whatever. I was loaded up with Heparin (I still have the bruises) so I wouldn’t develop blood clots from lying prone for days. I was in pain, but ok. Now I’m realizing I was probably just desperately trying to convince myself. This is uncomfortable. I don’t like it.

Except now I remember this one night. I had to just text my husband to ask if he was with me when this happened, and he wasn’t – so I think it was night. A nurse was in my room, and someone else too – probably another nurse or an aide. They were doing my vitals, so it was after the shift change, probably the 11pm one (so it could have been anywhere from midnight to 2am). One of them said my pulse ox was too low (I don’t remember getting oxygen), and I remember how hard it was to breathe. Of course it was hard, I’ve talked about that already, but like, I had to think about breathing to do it. Otherwise I was just ready to sink down into sleep and not worry about breathing, and probably not do it anymore. One of them yelled at me that I had to keep breathing, and I am a people pleaser, so I worked at it, but I was so, so tired. I sort of think they put something in my IV, but that part is really hazy. So. I think I was lucky that they happened to stop by and do my vitals right then.

It’s a good thing my company has great health benefits, including mental health. I’m going to get a new therapist and work through all of this. One of my HR reps at the meetup suggested that I use our Maven benefit for the kids, which is an excellent suggestion I hadn’t even thought of. Grant has asked a few times if I will go back to the hospital (NEVER AGAIN, if I have my way) (except for tomorrow when I have my surgery follow-up).

There’s this Struts song that the kids and I are obsessed with (Halsey covers it in Sing 2, which the kids and I are also obsessed with) called “Could Have Been Me,” and the chorus starts, “I want to taste love and pain, wanna feel pride and shame, I don’t wanna take my time, don’t wanna waste one line, I wanna live better days, Never look back and say, Could have been me, it could have been me.” In retrospect, I’m not sure I do want to taste pain! I am not glad to have had this experience! It took me a long time to embrace the chaos of Grant’s arrival in the world – that was also painful, though can’t hold a candle to this mess – so I guess I’ll get there. But it’s hard right now.