#HAWMC Day 5: Ekphrasis Post

#HAWMC Day 5: Ekphrasis Post

Finding an image to use for this post turned out to be quite fortuitous as the first picture I saw was the one I ended up using. Because it is perfect, it is so powerful and I relate to it as that is where I have been and where I currently find myself. In the image, a young woman is staring at a skeleton. To me that represents looking death in the face. In return, the skeleton is holding her, face, and looking back at her, lovingly. (Yes, this sounds like a morbid romance, and yes, it is dark, and yes, it is SO me! Ha!) There is something so powerful in the ability to look death in the face. I have been there. I looked death in the face, and I survived.

Then I found this quote, which further adds to the significance, both of this image, and to how I feel about it:

" You only live live twice: Once when you're born, and once when you look death in the face."

              - Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

In the fall of 2010 I faced death. I underwent a bowel resection to treat my Crohn’s which had become unresponsive to treatment, or in medical terms, “failed treatment” (which, yes, made ME feel like a complete FAILURE). Surgery was my only option.


And I was mortified! My surgery was done laparoscopically and was deemed a success. Until about 3 days later, when I started getting fevers, which ended up signaling an infection. Exactly 1 week to the day of my first surgery, I had to undergo an emergency surgery, as I had suffered a perforation, and sepsis set in. Luckily it was caught in time, but that is not to say there weren’t complications along the way. For one I ended up with an ileostomy (which although temporary, was quite a shocking surprise). I ended up in the ICU for about 3 weeks (a time of which I have NO recollection, which severely upsets me, I grieve for that time lost, even though I’m told it’s best that way). From the ICU, I spent 2 months in the Med-Surg unit. And from there I “graduated” (Ha!) to a skilled nursing facility, as I required nursing care to treat my open wound as well as to continue my NG tube feedings (not only was I down to 79lbs, I didn’t have an appetite, a problem which persists to this day, ugh). I spent a total of 4 months in the hospital. I won’t say that it was pleasant, yet it wasn’t horrible either. I had the support of family and loved ones. I never lacked for visitors. And my healthcare team was great.


I can’t get into too many details yet, as to do so triggers my PTSD, which I suffered as a result of this trauma. Suffice to say that given the context of what I’ve been through during these past 1.5 years, I feel that I have looked death in the face, and that I have been reborn. Last year I fell into a deep depression, which is to be expected, given all that I’ve been through. But I’ve kept things bottled up for too long. The longer I repress my feelings, the longer I allow the depression to overtake me. And that is a form of death, yet I want to live. It is an empowering feeling to go through all that I did, and come out of it alive. Yes, I have Depression and PTSD, yet I also feel stronger. Because I am “reborn” and have been given a second chance at life. It feels empowering to say that I am giving birth to myself (not in a new-agey way, haha), once I break through the fears which have held me back. In that sense, a part of me has to die, so that the me who I really am can be born. I feel I am in the process of changing, of growth, of metamorphosis. I am evolving into who I am meant to be.

@hipsteralice
April Blogger in Residency
Alice in Crohnsland for

http://whatthejules.com/april/295-hawmc-day-5-ekphrasis-post