Contradictions, love and luck.

I have been lying here (literally - keep reading) figuring out what to write for this post.

Everything I write sounds so cliche and then I swiftly delete it. A few weeks ago, I was admitted to hospital for what would become a 9-day stay. And I was lucky. I feel like everything has changed, yet somehow everything is exactly the same. A contradiction.

Let’s backtrack. On a lazy Saturday night, I was doing nothing, other than binge-watching the Netflix series Painkiller (it is a good watch but I still can't bring myself to finish the last 20 minutes of it - keep reading) when I got the worst headache I have ever known (classic Thunderclap - feel free to look that one up). My husband swiftly called an ambulance (I do recall yelling at them in my agony not to give me Oxycontin - note aforementioned TV show - if YKYK) and they whisked me off to the ED. The last thing I recall of that night was throwing up the risotto I had made for dinner) - all over the ED corridor. (The risotto was yummy and was great going in, by the way, not so much coming out - A contradiction).

I woke up on Monday to find out I had suffered a Subarachnoid Haemorrhage (Brain bleed beteeen the protective layers of the brain). For the next week or so, I was hooked up to wires, poked and prodded for blood samples and medications, observed every 2 hours around the clock, and sent for various scans on my brain. Thankfully, There is nothing sinister inside my brain, but there are no answers either. A contradiction. 

There was no stroke, no aneurysm, no tumour, and alas no answers. And the people of science (the amazing Neurosurgeons and doctors at Monash Health) like answers. All the team can do is look at previous cases like mine, review all the data, and make an educated guess about what the future holds, based on the law of averages. Thankfully - the risk of reoccurrence is low - according to the evidence they have seen.

By golly, I hope the evidence is right.

The Neurology ward in a hospital is a battleground. Each patient fighting their fights. Unlike a Maternity ward that is filled with joy and new beginnings and cute little babies that smell so sweet, the Neurology ward is filled with sorrow and grief for loved ones that may never be the same again due to brain trauma - but it is also a place of hope and pure love, or a form of it. A contradiction. 

The love and hope I saw in the hospital was not the internet or advertising kind of love (like flashy jewellery, new cars and trips away). The kind of love I saw is sitting by someone's hospital bed day and night, not knowing if they will wake up, or be themselves when they do. The kind of love that gently feeds someone else when they cannot do it for themselves. Love that holds a hand or wipes a hair from a face or gives an extra pillow when they can't reach it for themselves. 

That kind of love gave me the hope I needed to get through each day. I cannot describe it in words but it is a memory I will hold in my heart forever. 

As the week went by, my headache and neck pain eased, I was able to sit up and feed myself, and I was able to walk to the bathroom. I was improving well. I watched others around me who were not so lucky. 

When they told me I could go home to recover I burst into tears. A mixture of relief and everything that had happened eventually caught up with me I guess.

I was going home, and I somehow felt guilty mixed with happy. A contradiction. Like when you fall pregnant and you have a close friend who is unable to conceive.

I was leaving when others would never have that chance (Good old empathy for others had kicked into full gear because, you know, life changing event and all of that).

After 9 days of being hooked up to wires and beeping machines, I was finally allowed to go back home. The strange thing was, that the hospital had become my little home. I knew the routine, I knew I was in the best place and I knew I was safe should it happen again.

But…...the evidence suggests…….Please be right evidence. 

I went from 24-hour surveillance to - well nothing. Zero. Silence. No beeps, no medications to take on the hour every hour (except for the one that opens my blood vessels and lowers my blood pressure), no bedpans, no doctor rounds at 8.30, and no lunch at 12 (my newfound “I am lucky, life is short", life-changing experience even had me appreciating the hospital food).

Of course, my family made sure I was resting but I felt like my hospital safety net had been ripped from under me. Home with loved ones in my safe place, but not feeling safe. A contradiction. 

In the hospital, when one of the nurses commented on my kindness, all I could do was say thank you - but then also wondered why, if I was so kind - would this happen to me?

Maybe it was to slow down, maybe it was to learn how precious life itself is, maybe there is no why, and if you knew why - it wouldn’t change the fact that I am here in this, doing all I can to get well again, and avoid reoccurrence and counting my lucky stars.

I am lucky. That my dear reader, is pure fact. No contradiction.