I Flew Over the CuckCoo's Nest

Greetings and felicitations Readers!

Its been a minute since I last posted. I have about a half dozen partly finished entries that have fallen victim to a years worth of stress and anxiety.

Today, instead of finishing any of these, I am going to write about a recent struggle. And it’s not easy. Please bear with me as I explore this intimate moment, and hopefully my reasoning for sharing becomes apparent as I go.

**”Trigger warning: frank mentions of self-harm, suicidal ideation and mental health issues**

The morning of this past February 14, greeted me not with flowers and breakfast in bed, but with belly-rolling nausea. After hours of Exorcist-worthy vomiting, a sad occurrence found me in a state of marital breakdown.

This entry isn’t about what happened to my marriage –its just important to note that my new singledom and the trauma that the fact imparted, set the stage for what was to follow.

Part of my lack of publishing over the last year has been a mild depression that is a result of a myriad of external socio-economic pressures that have resulted from my medical condition and disability.

In short, it sucks-ass to keep getting kicked in the face by life.

One such factor can be found in the fact that around six months ago I began to voluntarily stop driving. Three months ago I have up my license. I did this because of how bad my eyes have degraded as a result of dialysis. I’m going blind in one eye and in the other my eyesight is extremely poor.

This means it fell to my husband to provide all of my transportation. A stress on him. And a stress on me. The lack of freedom and control was and is, stifling.

On top of that, the effects of five years of limited income have eroded my financial safety net to nothing – and there are more costs at the end of the month then income coming in. This is nothing unique to me or my situation, every person struggling with chronic illness is in the same boat. Sadly, the social safety nets we all think are in place to lessen our burdens in times of stress, often are stretched too thin to help or do not exist at all.

In all this doom and gloom a single distant beacon of light lit the path to a future that was tenable and bright. Transplant.

Since my diagnosis, I have been very active in attempting to find a living doner. This tenacity has yet to pay off—but hope is not lost. For those who cannot secure a living match there is the option of getting placed on the deceased doners’ list.

The process to becoming activated on the List is quite arduous. An array of medical tests assessing many different aspects of the applicants’ physical health are required. Blood work, ultrasounds, allergy and prescription clinics…oh my! Nothing is sacred, every aspect of your being is laid bare and up for scrutiny.

Before the pandemic the average length of assessment prior to being activated on the List was about a year. As of February 14th, I had been working at getting activated for 5 years, 2 months and 2 weeks. I underwent more than 20 different medical tests, specialist appraisals and screening mechanisms. As of February 14th there was still no end in sight to the medical limbo I’d been living in.

Once a person’s kidneys fail they are what the medical world seems: End-Stage. This means without the life-sustaining therapy called dialysis, my body would gradually become overwhelmed by toxins and die.

Without dialysis that process could take a few days up to a few weeks. It’s not a nice death.

Dialysis itself is not a fun way to live. The time commitment alone is 4-hours in-chair, three times a week. Plus regular monthly specialist follow-up, plus extra sessions and hospitalizations as needed. Plus, plus, PLUS.

Physically dialysis is rough on your heart, your blood pressure is irregular, sleep schedule is disrupted (to put it mildly), you have muscle loss, mobility loss, Brian fog, your bones and teeth critically deteriate and pain is a constant comparison.

And that’s just a few of the challenges.

I dedicated myself to a relentless positive attitude and attempting to move forward with humility and grace.

You know what they say about the best laid plans.

Given the shock of the revelations of February 14th , I came to the unsettling realization that my life has only been – barely – suatainable due to the fact I had the unwavering support of my husband.

He mowed the lawn, took out the garbage, cleaned, drove me everywhere and did all the literal heavy lifting that was needed daily. His second income made it *just* so we could make rent AND buy groceries.

Alone? The future is unstable bleak and perilous.

The eve of February 14th I experienced what I can only describe as a nervous breakdown. I experienced suicidal ideation and made what I figured was a painless fool-proof plan. In my hysteria I made steps to follow my plan through.

Luckily, in my worst moments I looked to the wall and viewed the portraits of my children and took a step back from the edge.

The following day I slowly felt…nothing. I was flat. And so, so calm. And I also felt like nothing made sense except dying.

Not trusting myself to not follow through –and traumatize my children, I asked my sister-in-law to watch my kids while I took a couple days to regroup.

I checked into a hotel with the intent of making logical plans for survival and moving forward.

Instead I laid in bed for three days. Staring at the digital alarm clock. I didn’t eat. I didn’t sleep a wink. On the morning of the fourth day, I awoke with a certainty that if I didn’t do something drastic, my kids would have to survive without me.

I called my father-in-law. God bless him, he listened to all the gory details and despite being my husband’s father, chose to support me. He drove me to the hospital where I submitted myself with suicidal ideation.

Long story short, I was Form-1 ed. Meaning I was admitted to the hospital for psychiatric observation. The sad thing, while I was being assessed I was offered no real services. The nursing and basic social worker support were lovely. But meaningful assistance was not available to me.

Why? Because psychiatrically I was fine. I was diagnosed with situational depression. Told to seek an out patient therapist.

Therapy is something I not only believe in, but a support I’ve actively pursued for months now.

I’ve exhausted free services, used phone services to their limitations and sought ways to extend the cap of my $200 per annum allowed by my benefits provider. All to no avail.

Without institutional support, I spent the next three days furiously constructing a plan of attack.

In the end I completed a list of mitigations that needed to be completed. And I decided that I would seek MAID with the next year.

MAID – Medical Assistance In Dying, is available to Canadians with life-limiting illnesses. And it’s a heck of a lot less painful than stopping dialysis cold-turkey.

And what did the professionals, including medical and psychiatric doctors, have to say about this plan? Reasonable and understandable in the circumstances.

On hour 72 of my Form, I was released back into the world Armed with a plan and little else. I now have the understanding that a person in dire crisis-- in many cases is only offered the chance at peace via MAID, because reliable social safety nets are not available to many.

For a full day I started to enact my plan and began working on my mitigations, which included accessing many services that are available but are limited in the nature of their support.

Then a miracle – literally—happened. I opened my email and inside it was a letter announcing my activation on the List.

After over 5 years finally I have hope at a future where I can become self-sufficient again. Ahead I face many challenges. I will need to fundraise a grotesque amount of money and I will undergo some scary medical treatments. But goddammit, for the first time in many months I have hope.

I embark on the trials ahead aided by the knowledge that less then a week ago I was ready to face death before continuing as is in crisis. That knowledge empowers me to seek whatever help I need without embarrassment.

I can’t imagine what the destruction my suicide would have wrought upon the lives of my children, should I have followed through. I will be forever indebted to those friends and family who stood by me at my darkest hours. But I am most thankful to myself for not stopping. In the end I owe my life to my ability to push myself another hour, another day.

My only advice to others who find themselves in similar dark places is simply this:

When the path of life’s journey is at its darkest, and you are tempted to stop; keep going.

;