And Now, Home(!)

Today something I’d started to think would never happen at long last did (happen, that is). Call it a September miracle, call it the cumulation of over nine months of intensive medical treatment, call it what you want. All that matters is that I’m home.

I’ve breathed fresh air for the first time in forever and am now taking a moment, between a meal and a snack, to bask in the gloriousness of having my freedom. I’m posting this, in fact, while lying diagonally across my own bed. It has my own blankets on it, and my own pillows, and it smells like my own apartment, which I share with my own husband. I’m kind of tired—I hardly slept last night; too excited—but I don’t want to have a nap because I’m legit afraid I’ll wake up to medical staff checking on me.

I’m choosing to believe that it’s absolutely no coincidence that my hospital stay was approximately the length of the human gestation period. Though it was a rocky, very-full-term pregnancy, I’ve now been (re?)born a healthier and happier human being and will keep stretching a questionable metaphor because it would be such a shame not to exploit it. I am, after all, a much-improved person (physically speaking, at least; my sense of humour is more or less the same) when compared to the one I was in early December. Just as I’ve changed, so has the world I’ve been birthed (gross) into, and it’ll take time to acquaint myself with the day-to-day realities of life in a nation profoundly affected by a pandemic I’ve experienced only in the context of a weird medical bubble. There will probably be a bump or two as I transfer my seizure-management and anorexia-recovery plan from hospital to home, but I have plenty of support and plenty of evidence that I’m on the right track and will stay there.

Considering the state of things fairly recently, it’s astounding to think that through a combination of Dilantin and the ketogenic diet, I’ve now achieved better seizure control than I’ve had in as long as I can recall. With so few seizures, I’m no longer experiencing near-constant postictal psychosis and am thus thinking much more clearly. This is highly motivating in itself—yay for not always worrying that someone’s going to poison me! It also puts me in a good position to do everything possible to maintain this new place of epilepsy-equilibrium while continuing to work to get my body where it needs to be.

It’ll be GD hard at times, but I have many, many reasons to follow through. Most of them involve non-hospital coffee and being lazy with my husband, and all of them require me to be in the real world, thank you very much, with real-life rhythms that are comforting and comfortable.