The Choice: Finding Life in the Face of Adversity -- Six Stories from a Therapist's Casebook

ON THE BRIDGE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH

My Story

The first time I was exposed to death, I did not learn what it had to teach me. Instead, I ran from it. That was all I knew how to do. Death was the enemy. To protect myself and my family, I was determined not to allow it a place in my life. The problem with running away from death was that the path I was on did not take me away from death and back to my old life. It led me around in a circle. After a great deal of time and energy, I ended up right back face to face with an enemy now more fearful than ever.

How I came to see running away from death as a futile exercise, how I learned to think strategically about bridging the chasm between death and life, and how I have learned to live a full and happy life I hope to share with you by telling my story.

It happened one fine day in the fall of 1985. I had spent the morning away from my job as a community health nurse in the city of edmonton, Alberta, attending a lecture at the conference centre, close to where I lived and worked. When it was over, I had a nice lunch with several friends from the medical community who had also attended the lecture. Then, with no other appointments scheduled that day, I enjoyed the rest of the afternoon catching up on routine tasks in my office.

Then I drove the eighteen or so blocks to our apartment and went straight to the kitchen to make dinner. My husband came home at around 6 p.m. I was happy to see him. He had been traveling on business the previous two days.

At 6:30, we sat down to enjoy our meal together. At 6:45, my head began to shake. It was an odd feeling, one I would not be able to describe accurately until I experienced a minor earthquake while visiting Montreal a few years later. I looked over to my husband and noted that he did not look concerned. Being well versed in first aid, I thought that if I was going to faint, I should get myself to the ground. I slipped off my chair and put all my energy into finding the floor.

º SURVIVING º

According to my husband, I lay there looking very serene. He was anything but. He had just witnessed his wife of five years slip into an unconscious state. He knelt beside me and pleaded with me to open my eyes; to give him a sign that I was simply having a moment that would pass. When I did not respond, he took me into his arms (he is a former football player, and I am petite), got me into the car, and drove in a panic to the hospital a few blocks from our home.

Several hours later, I woke up in the emergency department. Everything looked dark, except for my husband’s white shirt, which I could see out of the very corner of my left eye. A wave of sheer terror was interrupted by my husband’s voice. He leaned over me so I could see the outline of his face and whispered, Don’t worry. I will take care of you. I believed him. I felt very grateful. Then I went back to sleep, leaving him to deal with the bad news, alone.

The news was that, at the age of twenty-eight, and five months’ pregnant with our first child, I had suffered a major stroke. It was impossible to tell whether either of us — I or our baby — was going to make it. If I lived, it would be days before the doctors would be able to assess the neurological damage. If the baby lived, well, the variables were too numerous for anyone to make a prediction.

It was my husband who had to make the call to my parents in the middle of the night. It was he who sat at my bedside, shouldering the load alone until my mother flew in from Ottawa and joined him, twelve hours later. Together, they stayed with me day and night. They became my lifeline. They held me and I felt great comfort in their