PICC-versary

June 14, 2007

I didn't want to be here. I didn't want to to be late because I might have a clot that could kill me. I didn't want to be this sick because I survived the two weeks of oral medication before the PICC install. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to live. I didn't want to be this.

I was in shock. The air around me was fragile as thin glass.

I knew how to act. I knew how to be. I knew how to mask this. I knew how to make this ok for everyone.

This was the last time my smile looked like that. The nerve damage from the claimed my face in such slight and profound ways...

It has been 11 years since this day which started a 5 year regiment of treatment that torn my guts, tricked my mind and damaged my heart.

I'm still trying to make this ok for others. I have the words to say "it was nothing" or "it's ok"

...but everything in my soul was torn from me - and that is not ok.

What I most hate is when people tell me I'm a fighter or warrior when I manage to tell them what happened to me. I hate it. I hate that in those words, people articulate or assume or communicate or think or feel - that me being alive was a proactive choice I made. There is no choice in sickness, there is no battle - as infection tore through my body, there was nothing I could do.

I hate that people use these words to throw responsibility back on the sick. That maybe if we just tried to not be sick a little harder, it would be better.

There is no control, there is no choice. Stop telling me I had a choice to live or die. To be healthy or sick. To be happy or sad.

I am alive and every time I feel happy to be alive, I remember that many others are not. I don't know why I am alive and they are not. I don't know what combination of things worked in my favor.

Today is my PICC-versary.