{"id":1571,"date":"2015-01-27T13:02:13","date_gmt":"2015-01-27T18:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/?p=494"},"modified":"2015-01-27T13:02:13","modified_gmt":"2015-01-27T18:02:13","slug":"feelings-friend-nearly-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/?p=1571","title":{"rendered":"The feelings you have when your friend nearly dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My good friend nearly died last <del>night<\/del>* Thursday. His heart stopped\u00a0on two separate occasions, and both times CPR and a defibrillator had to be used to restart his heart. So, one could argue the\u00a0semantics\u00a0about it and say he actually died twice.<\/p>\n<p>He was coming out of surgery for a relatively routine, low-risk sort of elective procedure for his shoulder. That it turned into one of those medical dramas that you wish to only view on television is terrifying.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Thankfully he was revived and stabilized quickly, and is recovering in the cardiac centre of the hospital. They are doing tests that will hopefully determine the cause of what happened.<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t even imagine the swirl of emotions that his wife, and mother of his two young children, must be dealing with right now. In time, I hope we will have a good discussion about it, but for now I don&#8217;t presume to even be able to imagine what she&#8217;s going through. However, I know I have my own set of emotions that I&#8217;m sorting through, so I&#8217;m writing\u00a0it down as sort of self therapy:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Terror\u2014he&#8217;s healthy, young (practically the same age as me), and\u00a0he was so nearly lost from us so quickly. The horrifying &#8220;what if&#8221; thoughts that drift to mind are best pushed aside. The contemplation of my own\u00a0mortality, and that of\u00a0T,\u00a0is both scary and sobering.<\/li>\n<li>Relief\u2014that he is alive and looks to recover. Relief that he will return to his family and friends, and that this will be chalked up to a great story to tell his children.<\/li>\n<li>Disbelief\u2014It was a routine procedure, one he&#8217;s had done before without any complications. It doesn&#8217;t make sense to my brain that anything should go wrong. It&#8217;s such a shocking episode, and told to me second-hand, that my brain is having a hard time believing it, without seeing it. I suppose it is a privilege of being young, that dealing with death of my friends and peers is still an abstract notion.<\/li>\n<li>Thankful\u2014that his medical staff were more than competent and were able to save his life.<\/li>\n<li>Curiosity\u2014What does he remember from the experience? Does he find his outlook on life and family, values, or risk assessment changed? Why did it happen?<\/li>\n<li>Fear\u2014Could it happen again? How will this change what he can do in his life?<\/li>\n<li>Morbid jealousy\u2014he now has the best &#8220;truth&#8221; for the &#8220;2 truths 1 lie&#8221; icebreaker, hands down.<\/li>\n<li>Judgemental\u2014thoughts wondering about whether he had his affairs (e.g. will, insurance) in order<\/li>\n<li>Shame\u2014about thinking the thoughts of jealousy and judgement<\/li>\n<li>Awkwardness\u2014how do we, as his friends, talk about this? <strong><em>Should I even be publishing this post<\/em><\/strong>? What kind of support and comfort can we offer his wife? It seems gauche to have a Facebook discussion for many to see. And yet, how do we\u00a0gather centrally\u00a0to just talk it out so that we may gain some comfort ourselves? Do we send an invitation to a virtual\u00a0group chat? What I want is to gather physically in one space, and just be with one another.<\/li>\n<li>Craving\u2014for humour. To break the tension. And because when we can make jokes about it, it will mean that\u00a0this episode is firmly in the past, that he is alive and well, and that we are all moving on with life.<\/li>\n<li>Craving\u2014 for hugs. I gave my husband and girls extra long hugs these past couple of days. In a way, it&#8217;s to reassure myself that they, and I, are still here.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To my friends and family, here&#8217;s a virtual hug from me to you, until I can next give you a real one in person. \u00a0(&gt;^_^)&gt;&lt;(^o^&lt;)<\/p>\n<p>And to you, my friend in the hospital now blessed with the ultimate comeback to any situation, we love you too much to stop worrying until you are well. Please get well soon.<\/p>\n<p>~Jen<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>*I wrote this post last Friday, Jan 23, before I knew more details about what happened, the diagnosis and treatment plan. I found out shortly afterwards that his\u00a0treatment includes an additional medical procedure to take place, so I decided to wait before posting. \u00a0I am happy to say that the procedure seems to have went well, and he is on his way to recovery. The details of it all though, is his story to tell.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My good friend nearly died last night* Thursday. His heart stopped\u00a0on two separate occasions, and both times CPR and a defibrillator had to be used to restart his heart. So, one could argue the\u00a0semantics\u00a0about it and say he actually died twice. He was coming out of surgery for a relatively routine, low-risk sort of elective &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/?p=1571\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The feelings you have when your friend nearly dies<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8],"tags":[151,170,209],"class_list":["post-1571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rants-and-reflections","category-self-awareness","tag-friends","tag-health","tag-life-cycle"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/kaboompics.com_Alive_edit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeneralmusings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}