A Turning Point in My Life
A “peak experience” in recent years was my near-death experience exactly 4 years ago. None of the psychiatrists who supervised my lithium medication ever told me to stop taking it in case of high fever. So, I continued to take my daily pill for several days, even though I had a bad cold with 103 degree fever. I got lithium poisoning and pneumonia, causing dehydration. If I hadn’t gone to the hospital when I did, I would have died or suffered permanent brain damage. I have Dr. James Kennedy to thank, for getting me to go, in spite of my resistance. I was in the hospital for 7 days, during which Dr. Droubay did everything possible to pull me through. My family and friends also rallied ‘round me. André and Eva made food for me, since the hospital food was inedible. I remember especially the red jello, which they frequently made for me. They ate with me and spent lots of time visiting. Jan also came. My room was full of flowers. People kept sending cards, calling and visiting even after I came home. I said to someone, “I didn’t know I had so many friends.” (Whenever André was abroad and I was alone at home, I felt like I had no friends at all, after 30 years in Davis!)
When I understood what a close call it was, coming on so suddenly, and leaving me so weak, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of gratitude. I told my Dream Group, “It felt like being a fetus, warmly held in the womb.” I didn’t know so many people cared. When I returned home, my house looked beautiful. I loved lying in the Sun Room, looking out on the garden, with the sun streaming in and all the flowers and plants from friends surrounding me. I felt very lucky to be alive.
It took 4 months of intensive speech therapy to overcome my slurring. This feeling of gratitude for life has permeated every day since that time. I know I am living “on borrowed time,” though I don’t know for how long. Sometimes I feel I have many good, productive years ahead, that I am just beginning to express myself as an artist. At other times, when A. has been particularly unsupportive, I feel I could “throw in the towel” and collapse at any moment. I am living without lithium, the medication I needed. I sometimes overreact, like getting very angry because A. kept me waiting 15 minutes recently. I am making a great effort to use adult strength to do for me what lithium used to do. Also, daily yoga practice and weekly yoga classes help, and tennis!
I feel I have an obligation to use my time wisely and well, since this experience. I am trying to share everything I have learned and accomplished in 73 years of life, with everyone who is interested, to show my art work, and hopefully sell a few things, to teach others to develop their own creativity, as I have developed mine. (Nancy Jungerman once wrote to me, “I admire your commitment to creativity.”) I also feel obligated to continue learning and growing, taking art classes and finding my true voice. And to enjoy life every day, taking trips, socializing with old friends, playing tennis, seeing operas, eating out in S.F. (This was written before the Pandemic.)
Where there is life, there is hope.