I’m taking the day off from posting beautiful pinup models.
I’ve been coping with a formidable health issue lately. It’s called Meralgia paresthetica. It’s a result of losing weight recently, going down a belt loop and crushing my lateral femoral cutaneous nerve. Like most life altering injuries […which I’m hopeful this won’t be for long], one tends to think about life; bigger, deeper and more profoundly. I’ve been doing this a lot lately, but not for the same reasons you may think.
*I'd caution this clip is graphic for anyone sensitive to blood or violence
I’ve been living with chronic pain of some form for almost 20 years. In a past life […my 20’s] I was a professional wrestler that performed in death matches up and down the east coast. Death match wrestling is an ultraviolent niché of the pro wrestling industry. Imagine WWE, but with barb-wire strands instead of rope. Thumbtacks, lightbulbs, fire, mousetraps, staple guns, salt. The matches are predetermined and choreographed, but the injuries are real. As a result, I’ve suffered back, neck and jaw injuries that’ve stayed with me ever since.
My recent introspection is more of a result of trying to find a cure for this condition. In addition to stretching, chiropractic and massage, I’ve also utilized acupuncture to find some relief. Thus far, it hasn’t cured the neuralgia paresthetica, but it’s kept me in a reclined chair for an hour giving me plenty of time to think.
Post acupuncture session, I was told “…it’s really unsettling when you lay there for a whole hour with your eyes open. I’ve been doing this for years and no one does that!”. She was smiling, so I think [hope] she was half kidding. I explained to her that I’m fucking neurotic, so she’s going to have to deal with it because I’m not the kind of person that’s going to fall asleep in the chair with a dozen needles in my head.
I drifted through abstract thoughts and memories. My father was killed my a drunk driver on February 16th, 2001. My grandmother just died this year; February 16th, 2017. I’ve been busy with life since her passing [March and April feel like they didn’t even happen], so naturally, death is still occupying much of my thoughts.
An entirely more complicated layer to the recent loss of my Oma has been explaining death to my five year old son. This has been the first family loss of his life. He’s been somewhat emotional, but I’m amazed that so many of his questions have been scientific in an attempt to comprehend his loss of a loved one. “Will we see Oma again?”. “No.” I said. “Where does she go?”. I replied, “She’ll going to be cremated. That means she’ll be burnt and turned to ash.”. “Oh.”, he said. “Then where does her ashes go?”. I explained to him that Oma is from a small town in Germany called Weinheim and that I’ll be taking her ashes to Weinheim tower, and spreading them at the base. He asked what’ll happen then and I told him they’ll just become part of the earth again. He thought about it for a while, and said “Will plants grow out of her?”, and I said “Yes.”. He then said “So Oma will become a flower?”. I told him that in a sense, yes. He said “So, she’ll be able to see and hear everyone as a flower?”, and that is when I had to try and define consciousness to a child, and to myself. This conversation got much deeper in the woods, but I’ve stayed grappling with consciousness and the lack there of.
I laid back in the reclining chair at this community acupuncture center in NE Minneapolis, feeling a lot of pain and discomfort. I remember my mom telling me that she would have moments of awareness, where she’d wake up in bed and just look around. She had breathing and feeding tubes down her throat so she couldn’t talk. She couldn’t move, and her thoughts were all she had.
A couple of times, I moved to scratch my nose and felt the acupuncture needles twist against the muscles of my hand. It was extremely painful, so I quickly learned to just stay as still as possible. Not being able to relax or fall asleep, I thought about everything. I thought of Oma in a hospital bed and imagined myself there; in her place. I wonder if she knew she was going to die in a few short days. In those final hours, or minutes, morbid as it may be, I wish I knew what she was thinking.
Sitting in the acupuncture center, I thought about my own mortality and those fleeting thoughts. The closest I’ve come to death was an accident in 2006 when a man in an SUV pulled out in front of me, T-boning him in my small sedan at 65mph. I remember everything slowing down. My life didn’t flash before my eyes, but I remember feeling like everything that was unfolding was my end, and I had more than enough time […in those few seconds] to process the inevitable collision and much of how and why it was about to happen. Spoiler. I survived, and went through 4 months of physical therapy, but I vividly remember a few seconds of awareness that I most likely wouldn’t.
Assuming I don’t face a horrible, violent death, I imagine my own last thoughts. Most likely, I’ll think of my son. I think that’s probably a stock answer for most parents, but I experienced his birth as closely as a farther could aside from delivering him. We had a water birth, and I documented him coming in to the world. I was sure to point the camera towards his birth, but to experience and watch everything that was happening with my own eyes. That moment, surely, will stay with me until my last breath.
The possibility of random thoughts, though, haunt me. More of a biological dice roll as the last stimuli hit our senses; effectively, the final sight, smell, sound or sensation to react to our neurotransmitters in to a dying synapse. The deafening beep of medical equipment, the sound of crying, or the smell of urine. Seven years as a mental health technician has taught me that the reality of the medical industry is far less dramatic and colorful than a captivating book or movie.
Briefly, though, […and relevant to Hollywood interpretations of death] is this scene from M. Night Shyamalan’s“Signs”. This scene really stayed with me from the night I first saw the film. The moment when thoughts, awareness and consciousness ceases to exist.
I’d be remised if I didn’t admit that during my uninterrupted hour in the acupuncture chair, I thought a lot about Steemit […and how the more profound contemplations would make a worthwhile blog post]. The truth is, I’m so glad a place like this exists for us, because I think stumble through these complex thoughts often. Until Steemit, I never had a place or community to share them.
I’ll be posting more explorative writings of life, death and consciousness, in addition to comics, photography, creative writing and art here at my blog, 