I can remember sitting on the bus, probably coming home from downtown. The sun was streaming through the window beside me and as I looked out into the bright light I immediately squinted. A searing pain shot through my eyes and then was gone. I didn’t pay much attention to this since bodies do offer up various assorted aches, pains and twinges that amount to nothing. As it turned out, it was not one of those. It was the first symptom of an illness careening way off track from its normal course.
A sore throat came next and thus a descent into full blown mononucleosis began that would change my life forever. This is a common enough malady, especially among young adults. But it very quickly turned itself into something extremely uncommon in my case, and over the course of a few days I gradually became almost completely paralyzed and lost sensation in most of my body. At one point, when I could still pretend to be better than I actually was, my doctor came to see me on a house call. I remember looking at her and only being able to see half of her face. I said nothing. I knew the situation I was in was not good and I was afraid of making it worse. Telling her half her face was missing would not sound good. She would think I had lost my mind. In my fear I decided to be quiet and avoid making things more complicated.
Despite my plan and most valiant effort to deny that anything was out of the ordinary, the downhill slide continued. I really was losing my mind, quite literally. I don’t remember going blind but that happened too. Gradually I slipped into more and more unconsciousness until I drifted off entirely into the safety of a coma.
That’s the nutshell version of what happened. The more medical version that was explained to me was that my immune system, for reasons still not understood, could not distinguish the invader virus from the myelin sheath insulating and protecting my nerves. It launched a colossal attack to eliminate both and I have to say I cannot help but admire the mighty strength of my body’s seek and destroy mechanism. No wonder I almost never got sick! It almost succeeded in killing all of me off but not quite. On the night that the doctors were most doubtful about my survival I stabilized and then much more slowly than I went down, I started to make my way back up again. The details of what happened are not interesting anymore. Through many more years of living they have eroded down to irrelevance.
I was almost 25 when Life lobbed this curve ball at me. Now I’m in my 60’s. I’ve had decades of learning things that I may never have known, and I’ve gained insights I may never have had without this experience. One of the most important things my journey has taught me is this: what happens to us in life is not so important. What matters more is how we respond to what happens. That’s a choice every time. That’s where your power is and that’s exciting!
