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Bex Hall > Memoir in Objects > It reminds me I survived

It reminds me I survived

February 24, 2022

A reminder I survived.

June 2014, Ashland, KY

38° 28’ 48”N, 82° 38’ 40”W

Behind the wheel, at a red light, I can see the intersections ahead and know I need to turn left at one of them. The names swirl in the fog inside my head. Which street, or is it an avenue? Who am I going to see today?

I turn and all I see are four lanes of cars headed toward me. They’re speeding up, I can tell. Horns blare and I yank the wheel left into a parking lot and I watch in the rearview as the cars rush by.

I do not remember how I got home. You would think me inebriated, but I wasn’t. I had quit drinking 14 months previously.


Cleveland Clinic

41° 28’ 8.256”N, 81° 59’ 7.429”W

I’m in a small office with my husband and a doctor. Her mouth moves, but I can’t grasp what she’s explaining. The words flow around me, but they don’t stick. 

If I smile and nod, she’ll think I’m okay. But I’m not okay. Is this what dementia is like? Do I have dementia? Her expression looks stern. I am afraid to look her in the eye. Anymore, when I look at someone’s face, I see what they see and it makes me queasy.

“I don’t understand,” I blurt as my eyes fill.

She’s so patient. I’m a child now and she’s the parent, drawing a picture on a napkin she pulls from a container on the wall. She clicks her pen and writes what I am experiencing in words I’ve never heard before.

“Hepatic encephalopathy” with a frowny face beside them and two underlines, so this must be important.

Confused —> lethargy —> coma —> death.

You know how a roulette wheel works? That first spin, the ball bouncing and careening—that’s how I felt sitting there, waiting for the ball of truth to land in a slot of understanding.

She drew a rough sketch of the abdomen and tried her best to show where I was on the confused/lethargy/coma/death scale.

The drawing helped. I *understood* it was serious, but all I knew was I wanted this to be over. I wanted to go home.


It was later that month I met the criteria to be placed on the transplant list for a new liver. I keep this napkin as a reminder I survived.


For more about organ donation, visit UNOS.

UNOS Saving Lives Together

This is the 8th story in the Objects as Waypoints Writing Project series.

Filed Under: Memoir in Objects Tagged With: the 100 day project 2022, the objects

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About Bex

 

Bex Hall

Her writing has appeared in various online and print publications, most recently in Kerning, a literary magazine, and in the Stories of Hope Collection in Transplant Living. Her artwork has appeared and sold through the Grayson Gallery. She blogs here about creative life and creates in Studio BE overlooking the Ohio River. Her work in progress is a memoir about the secret life of objects.

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  • The 100 Day Project

    50 short stories in 100 days.

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  • Creative practice goals:

    Show up every day behind the pen, the brush, or the lens and share my work.

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