One thing about having a creative right side of your brain is that your flashbacks are impeccably detailed, down to the types of species on the floor tile. This added bonus makes reliving your dreaded moments even more painful as you vividly place yourself back in the moment of one of your most vulnerable chapters. I often think that if I hadn’t gone through my medical episode in 2015 I wouldn’t have been prepared to survive sepsis. You know finding the silver linings in every situation has become my specialty, although I can say that the silver sparkle has lost its glimmer in recent months. My type A personality wouldn’t let me not have some type of control in the situation and for me that was knowing what to expect entering into the recovery phase. I knew that physiotherapy would come to visit and have outcomes for me to pursue. I knew the goals, and the achievements that I had to meet in order to get the pass-go to get discharged and back to my ‘normal’. This meant sitting in the sleep chair and at least one lap around the nurse’s station on the step-down unit. I knew that dietary would be visiting often to ensure that I would be having the appropriate intake of protein.

What I didn’t expect or chose not to acknowledge was the vivid flashbacks of the titering moments that I spent in the ICU, knowing this could be my last moments on earth. I thought that I was doing so well just pushing those memories and feelings deep down into the black hole I had created in my mind. I thought if I could keep myself as busy as possible, on the brink of so busy that I could potentially burn myself out I would never have to relive those moments or remember anything of that time, oh yes that I was on death’s door. Well, slap me silly, I was wrong. I had gone eight months and was cruising, until bam. A routine MRI sent shockwaves through my system and forced me to reevaluate how emotionally stable I was pretending to be.

In all fairness, what I do say is that I need to regroup myself and my ‘big feelings’ over and over again, which I am sure my therapist would appreciate than referring to how emotionally unstable I felt I had become.

It was a routine test, a standard procedure that I have had before at least a handful of times. An MRI with dye contrast. It used to be simple. Prepare myself for the IV needle which was truly the hardest part of the procedure. Once that was over with, it was straight in, relax while you hear the waves of the magnet go around your body over and over again. It sounded like a jet flying around you taking off every two seconds. Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh. After about five minutes, the sound would drown out and all that you could hear were your intrusive thoughts. After a few moments, a voice would come through the speaker and remind you to lie still and that this next round of jet-fueled take-offs would be about two more minutes. A different pattern of swooshing would come through and before you know it, it was over with. Each hospital has a different protocol and procedure for how they prepare you to get into the machine, but at the end of the day you were still lying on the hard, cold table for a scan you were told, “If you don’t hear any news, that’s good news for you”.

This MRI scan was different. I had had a CT scan about two weeks after I had left the hospital, with contrast. I’m not sure if I was too numb to realize what had just happened and what my body and potential life outcome had been or if I was adjusting to going through the motions of medical procedure after medical procedure. It had been months and months since I had didn’t have to relive my vivid hospital moments. When I needed to have this scan done to monitor my kidneys, I thought this was just another scan, another checkmark on my road to recovery. I had gold stars on my rehabilitation and recovery journey. I was back to work full force, with minimal complications aside from my energy levels not being at optimal levels. Was I wrong.

This was just not another scan. This was a scan that I had to have completed at the height of my battle, in the fragility of my health, where we didn’t know what the next hour, let alone the next day would look like. So I thought, ever so confidently that this recent scan would be a piece of cake. I walked into the hospital, held my head high, waited my turn to register, went down the long hall and waited to get my IV in my arm, tell the MRI Technologist I was a hard pick and to use whichever arm they could get. It is better to use the butterfly needle, just from experience. I got on my glamorous hospital shirt, which does if I have to say bring out the blues in my eyes and sat myself on the table. It wasn’t until I lay down and saw the strip of silver tape that ran above my head on the ceiling of the machine that all of my buried feelings started to bubble over. In an instant, warm tears streamed down the sides of my cheeks pooling at my ears. I tried to stay as still as possible while taking deep breaths and slowly counting the lifted edges of the silver tape that had come up over time. How many places had the tape lifted, and how many strings had come loose. I needed to stay in for the entire scan. I needed to force myself to stay until the very end. I couldn’t go through it again. Trying to distract myself from any thought that would make me jump from this table. What I couldn’t push out of my mind and made my tears stream faster was that the last time I had this scan, I was actively dying. I was fighting for my life while the magnet circled my body over and over again. Hearing the voice come over the intercom to remind me to remain perfectly still, while I was in excruciating pain not knowing what they would find. Would it be promise, hope and improvement or painful news that would bring us back to the drawing board.

Finally, I heard the go-ahead that the scan was complete. I had passed the first stage – having enough courage to stay through the entire scan. Once the technologist came in to push the buzzer to pull me out from the table, I stood up immediately trying to catch my breath. They could sense that I was shaken from the experience and took my IV out right there. She was comforting and compassionate during the entire experience, which was what I needed to move forward. To gain the courage to finish the scan because I knew it was important.

I grabbed my clothes and quickly got dressed. I felt like I was transported out of the hospital. I don’t remember getting to my car. I think I might have floated there. The rain was heavy and created a blur on my windshield once I got into the car. It felt like that has been what my life has been these past months. A blur, not clearly seeing or acknowledging what had happened to me and my family.

Everything felt like rain, either a drizzle of emotions that I could keep in control with just the right umbrella or hail with no clear path of security and calm in sight. 

Part 3 coming soon…