September

On the 18th of September 2017 I suffered a cardiac arrest and against all odds I survived.  Every September after this I have had mixed feelings when my anniversary gets closer.  With a sense of dread I’ve seen September getting closer and waited for something bad to happen again.  Of course there is no reason for something bad to happen in September, there are eleven other months of the year for this to happen.  I think gradually over the last few years I have realised that there is no reason to dread this month.  I have noticed this year that now we are in the middle of the month, I don’t have any bad feelings,yet.  I don’t remember anything that happened on that fateful night or the month afterwards but my family were there and remember how awful it was for me.  I have been told that I should be mindful of this as the memory for them must be awful.  I can’t imagine what they are thinking on the anniversary but hopefully for them the memories are fading.  We try to do something special on the day to celebrate that I am still her.  I talked a while ago about it being my reborn day, the start of my new life and treating it like a birthday.  The birth of my new life. In previous years I would try to remember what I did on the day I was unwell.  I only have vague memories of that day.  I would think stupid things like what I had for dinner that day and what I was wearing was really not important. On the first anniversary I had to go out that night and do something at the exact time so I would take my mind off of it.  Luckily now I don’t really think too much about this and just focus on the last few years and the nice things I have done on that day instead.   I was thinking why I have started to feel differently this year and I am really not sure why I feel this way.  It is good though.  It could be evidence of me finally accepting and understanding what happened to me.  I think this is something that you are told right from the beginning, you need to accept to be able to move on.  It is very hard to do this though when you are not really sure who you are now and what is going to happen.  This year I feel like I am finally finding my independence which I lost in a big way after I was unwell and over the last six years.  This year I have been trying to show my family that I can do more things for myself.  It is a bit scary doing this but I have been able to show that I can do more on my own again.  I have been quite busy this year.  You normally assess the year you have had when it is the new year but for me, my year starts in September.  I had a bit of a blip at the beginning of the year but altogether I am very pleased at how I have progressed this year and let’s hope it continues.