Up Again at 2am

I've been writing inside my head so much I decided it was time to pull things out and put them on paper. I'm just out of the hospital again after a two and half week stay. Each time this happens I'm hopeful that the shock and humiliation of it all will result in my changing what I believe are some unhealthy behaviors. It almost never does although after the 2007 intubation I finally stopped smoking. I'd been a smoker since the age of 14 so believe me it was no small feat. However, I'd wound up on oxygen 24/7 and frankly couldn't figure out how to use a lighter around oxygen. I had visions of people diving out windows every time they saw me try to light up. So I locked the image of the intubation tube down my throat and thought constantly of the movie Alien. I kept waiting for something to come out of my stomach. I'd tried everything including Chantix but nothing worked. But visualizing that tube down my throat was more horrifying than anything I could possible think of related to smoking. I've been a non-smoker for 3 years now and there's not a day I don't miss it.
Working seriously on self-change is exhausting!


This time I went to the coronary care unit because they thought my heart was going to stop. And still I come out of these events able to talk and think and function. The doctors always say they're amazed but my husband tells them "If you're surprised she's alive then you don't know my wife." I think he's afraid I'll come back and haunt him if he pulls the plug. Still I took the realization that my bed would have to be moved to living room very hard. I'm adjusting and the house actually looks larger. We put our beautiful sofa bed out on the curb with a free for the taking sign. It was gone within an hour. Slowly but surely I'm working on this healing thing.