I’m Freaking Alive! (An Update: Bet the Under)
About a month ago I published I’m Fricking Alive! (A Love Story) as a recount of a life-altering health experience resulting in two months of hospitalization in critical condition. The response from friends, family and complete strangers alike has been difficult to put to words. The constant stream of love and support continues to catalyze a relentless recovery effort that feels like a daily physical and mental rebirth. Since leaving the hospital, each day has been overwhelmingly fulfilling and the accumulated incremental progress is enabling an exceptional life that I love so damn much. I’m transforming not just back to the person that I was but into someone with far greater perspective, inner peace and tenacity. Recovery requires a lot of work but I realize how substantial of a privilege it is to execute on that work each day and I refuse to pass over the opportunity. Here are some updates and things that I have learned during the past few weeks:
Incremental Progress. Small Wins. Milestones. Fulfilling Life.
A passage from my previous post seemed to resonate with a lot of people: “Incremental progress leads to small wins. Small wins lead to milestones. Milestones lead to a fulfilling life”. While I completely believed what I wrote, I have never put this foundational understanding of the human experience to a test so substantial.
By nature I want to be able to measure my progress and doing so has allowed me to complete each task with encouragement and gratitude. The motivation comes from the perspective of just how recently I was truly incapable of completing these tasks, especially the seemingly-trivial ones like taking a shower. These tasks are my small wins which are aligned with the milestones necessary for holistic recovery. The accumulation of completing these tasks has led to monumental progress in the past eight weeks:
Long and fulfilling days are the ones worth living for. Focusing on daily habits is far less intimidating than monumental challenges ahead and coincidentally is the most effective avenue to overcome them. Obsess over the inputs to achieve miraculous outputs.
Progress Takes Risk
Moving from the ICU to general care. Stepping over a curb without assistance. Turning on the camera for a team meeting. There is a first for every part of the life that I want to restore and often extreme discomfort is a barrier of entry. The derivative of this discomfort is the risk. Coming from such a severely fragile physical state amplifies a reasonable concern for safety. While this could overwhelmingly deter my progress by taking a more conservative approach to physical rehabilitation, I refuse to let it do so. I need to find the balance of safety and risk but lean toward risk to expedite my recovery. The same goes for my mental rehabilitation: I need to re-engage with my relationships with friends and family despite potentially difficult conversations; I need to meditate even though being alone in thought could trigger painful memories; I need to take risk to make mindfulness a positive contributor in my life again. Leveraging the support from the people that I love makes these risks a little bit easier to address, however ultimately only the pursuit of living everyday with maximum fulfillment and potential will deliver the holistic progress that is worth overcoming any discomfort.
Address and Embrace the Elephant
I can’t pretend that nothing happened to me. I narrowly and miraculously avoided death and have immense challenges ahead to live again with any sense of normalcy. Evidence of this is obvious and public: my hair is growing back after chemotherapy treatments and I struggle with once-simple physical activity that might take months to be able to perform again. I need to own and embrace it all! Vulnerability is so refreshing especially when exposed to those that deeply care about you. Acknowledging what happened will lead to more positive conversation about my progress and potential. Eventually, the effort to normalize sharing my experience will restore my relationships and perhaps even improve their future authenticity. What more can you ask for with the people that you love to share your life with?
The Show Must (Not Always) Go On
Seldom have I been someone that you need to check on or worry about. I try to offer stability for the people that I love and in general am emotionally reserved. For the past few years, I have been infatuated with the study of mindfulness and, more specifically, working on my own ability to identify an internal emotional response before triggering an external reaction. This ability has substantially improved my relationships and has granted me the advantage of calmly tolerating high levels of stress when needed. While managing my emotions greatly contributes to my overall sense of peace, I need to be extremely cautious of emotional suppression which could lead to external displays opposite of how I’m actually feeling (i.e. “putting on a show”). Some of the best advice that I’ve received is to recognize my own tendency to want others to remain happy and positive. This is normally a good thing, but not everything is going to be positive during my non-linear recovery. I’m going to have bad days. I’m not going to hit every milestone in my optimal timeframe. I won’t always be happy. I don’t need to put on a show when it’s not all going my way. In fact, remaining honest about any negativity will allow me to more effectively leverage my support system and, in turn, not need to bear the full burden of it. This will make it easier to overcome adversity and to experience any spectrum of emotions more authentically.
Take Ownership to the Extreme
While I have a remarkable team of doctors, friends, family and others that love and support me, the challenges ahead are my own and must be addressed with extreme ownership. After returning home from in-patient rehab just under eight weeks ago, I weighed roughly 100 pounds, could not walk up steps, take a shower or even get up from chairs without substantial assistance. I also lacked the ability to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time. I needed to develop a plan, admit my limitations and take ownership of my reality, albeit a shocking one.
Fortunately, extreme ownership goes both ways: if I own my limitations and the process (including failures) to overcome them, I can also own the absolute joy that comes with the progress and success. More recently my days have been full of this joy and I am owning all of it.
Leverage Available Resources with Unapologetic Gratitude
I am so fortunate. I have access to doctors, physical therapists, exercise equipment, healthy food, a safe home, an understanding employer and anything else I could possibly need to succeed. While I feel obligated to express deeply genuine gratitude for having this access, I don’t need to feel guilty about leveraging every resource in my disposal that might expedite my recovery. In fact, I’m even more incentivized to take advantage of my fortunate situation to avoid being wasteful with the opportunity ahead. I’m unapologetically using all of it and reaping the rewards of absolute commitment.
I promise to keep these advantages in mind when trying to influence based on my world view. Healthcare, food, shelter and work should all be accessible resources to those that need it. They saved my life and can save many more if access were more equitable.
Experience Offers Perspective, Not Definition
What a waste this experience would be if I did not take time to reflect on and share it. Contrarily, if I dwell over it, it could develop into an excuse to not experience life to its full potential. This does not need to define me, but it does need to inform my perspective so that it can contribute toward how I want to live in the present and future. Effectively striking this balance will be something that evolves over time, especially as reminders become less frequent or are embraced as a new normal. This story is a remarkable one, but it is far from over so long as some of it remains in my control.
Bet the Under
A few weeks ago my brother-in-law passively mentioned that — if he were a betting man — he’d bet the under on the time it would take for me to recover. Just a few months ago, I didn’t think I’d ever see my family again. My friends. My dog. Anything. Before leaving in-patient rehab in Minnesota, I was told that if I continued to work hard enough, I might be able to return to a physical state akin to where I was previously at some point in 2023. This was welcome news after being uncertain that I’d leave Mayo Clinic alive. Two months later I feel not far from that previous physical state. I’m not yet running marathons again but I will be soon. I have developed a ferocious mentality that is more resilient than ever. I have returned to full independence in all areas of life and am likely moving back to California soon. Considering everything that I’ve learned and experienced so far, if there are any bets out there on my recovery timeline I would take my brother-in-law’s advice: bet the under.
