THE VIEW FROM HALFWAY DOWN

(cw) on strokes, death, tomorrow

it begins with the sensation of numbness in your left armpit. you wonder if you pulled something while working out, but wait the last time you worked out was two days ago, or maybe you reached too hard while picking something up off the ground? you can’t recall having done that recently though. over the next few minutes the sensation creeps down your left side; soon your entire left abdomen from shoulder to waist is tingling and you can no longer raise your arm. this can’t be a pulled muscle, you realize, though it could be some kind of neuropathy? pinched nerves often behave strangely

you google what does a stroke feel like reddit and start reading firsthand accounts of strokes. it feels a bit absurd to be reading about these things as they happen to you instead of actually doing something about it, but you’re curious, and you figure that a few minutes won’t make a difference here

your vision darkens and your hearing becomes muffled. or have they really? are these things happening because your brain is losing circulation, or simply because you expect them to happen and have an overactive imagination, or is it some kind of anxiety response? too bad you can never uncover the answer to that question

your housemates call an uber to the er. on the way there they fill you in on transient ischemic attacks and stroke risk factors. you check in and lie on the hospital bed as they do blood work, chest x-rays, ekg, all of which come back inconclusive. you go home and return the next day for a ct scan, again inconclusive. your brain is unremarkable, the radiologist says, how dare they

at last, after twenty-four years, you have received your first real glimpse of the view from halfway down. it’s a little jarring, the possibility that at any moment half your body could collapse. you decide you’ll keep wearing your hospital wristband indefinitely - it’s waterproof and a good reminder that 1) you will die 2) you need to take better care of yourself. you’ve spent a dozen hours over the past year trying on rings without any success; they always felt clunky, impractical, a distraction from putting your hands to work (which you believe is the whole point of having hands); but now you finally possess an item which belongs there

you remember a story L told you - whenever i’m bored in a conversation, i remind myself that i’m going to die and i am choosing to spend my time in this conversation, and then i change the subject to something more interesting. everything you are doing is a choice, so stop choosing things you don’t want! figure out what you really want to do and then go do it. you do not have time to worry about your inhibitions, about whether or not you’ll succeed, about if people will think you’re weird

but back to the emergency room: you’d forgotten how much of it is just boredom, empty space, waiting an hour or two for the next hospital staff to see you. you’d forgotten how doctors are often oddly resistant to conducting follow-up tests or getting to the root of a diagnosis. the effective altruists famously declared that not saving a drowning child was equivalent to shooting the child yourself; what moral framework do these doctors operate by, you wonder, because it’s certainly not that one

and yet you also discover the emergency room can be a place full of joy. getting carted across the hospital is really fun. you have wonderful friends who collectively spend thirty hours waiting with you, doing research and planning, talking to hospital staff (huge thank you to AY MX SZ RH AN <3). when you moved to sf two years ago none of that was true, and for the longest time you complained that all your favorite people were far away; look how far you’ve come. you take bizarre er selfies with your friends and joke about how you might have holes in your heart, which would explain the health situation as well as why you’re currently single

and the ct scan - you don’t know if words can adequately describe the ct scan. iodine entering your veins, ice-cold at first; every blood vessel dilating at the same time; your whole body warming up from the increased blood flow; wondering am i supposed to feel this way? nobody warned me about it; the heat becoming unbearable in your arms, your head, your chest as you become convinced you will actually burn to death; all of it dissipating within seconds of exiting the machine. it is the most incredible physical sensation you have ever experienced, your first time truly feeling how your body is connected via blood and a circulatory system

you could have a stroke at any moment. you are at elevated risk, after all, the bayesian evidence has never been stronger, like the fist of god always hovering over you. but what is there to do, other than to continue onwards, to take care of yourself, to keep doing all the things you like doing with the people you like being around?