They say the last thing to go when you die is your sense of sound.

I remember this from the story being told of a retiring EMT who went out on his last call of his last shift.
 
 
His unit was called out to a bridge, where a young man was standing on the rail. The folks on the ground were coaxing him down, and just when they thought he wasn’t gonna do it, the young man swan dives in a beautiful arc onto the ground below.
 
 
 
The retiring EMT makes his way down to the young man, in no particular rush, knowing that there was nothing that could save him at this point. But he kneels down besides this young man’s head and says in a really loud voice (more like a shout):
 
 
“I know you can hear me. I want you to know- that was spectacular!”
The new guy that was shadowing the retiring medic that week looked at him like he was nuts.
“Why would you tell him that? He’s gone. He wasn’t gonna survive that.”
The old medic says,
“No way was he gonna survive that. I didn’t want the last thing he heard to be about how horrible what he did was. I’m sure he got enough of that when he was living.”
 
 
 
My body must be giving me messages that I refuse to acknowledge because my morning aide sounds like she is standing in the middle of my ear canal screaming into a megaphone simply in asking me what’s wrong.
 
 
 
She sees my face scrinched up as she washes my hands in the basin on the table between us. I tell her that her talking voice is too loud and it hurts. Mercifully she takes her voice down to a hushed whisper. I am thankful for this small kindness.
When she puts the lathered washcloth on my upper body to clean me and it feels like gunny sack cloth grating against raw nerves instead of the soft Egyptian cotton that it is – I cannot ask her for the mercy of stopping because I am a lot of things but dirty will not be one of them. So I endure.
 
 
 
I persevere through being dried by the equally soft yet simultaneously abrasive hand towel. The wash-softened fabric of an old shirt puts an end to the misery of her touch feeling like over warmed glass brandishing my skin. The old inner fleece of my sweatpants though, feel like roughed pebbles against my thighs and calf. I cannot win everything. I am glad that she is done dressing me.
 
 
 
The cozy warm colored bulb of the bedside table has been lighting this morning journey. The overhead fan/light would feel and sound like I am wading neck deep in the sun. The bulb lights feeling like they are burning through my corneas, the slight buzz of the LEDs sounding like sizzling kitchen grease. There are limits to everyone.
 
 
 
She asks what I want for breakfast and nothing entices me, so I mutter the least offensive things that I have in my kitchen:
“I want the…” I open both eyes wide, looking at my aide. I purse my lips, vaguely picturing the items I want to convey to her and utterly unable to retrieve their names.
 
 
“I… want…the…” She waits patiently, knowing it’ll come. I close both eyes, resting them while taking the opportunity to try and conjure the images of be what I want to say.
“…the:
…cheese omelette in the freezer door.
Two breakfast sausages.
One piece of (GF) toast.”
 
 
Protien.
Salt.
Stomach settler.
 
 
 
One minute on each side in the microwave.
Ten minutes bake in the toaster oven.
45 seconds in the toaster.
 
 
I sit in my spot by my table, waiting. TV off.
Moving hurts. Noise hurts. Light is a blaspheme. The smells coming out of the kitchen are a level of hell I do not wish to speak. I wonder if this is what being alive but dead feels like: being present for the trappings of life and unable to enjoy any of them.
She brings my breakfast to me when it is all done and I side-eye the meager plate. The omelette is half of a bread plate. The sausages could be had in two bites each and the bread a necessary six bites. This may as well be a spread the likes of which King Henry would be proud.
 
 
 
I am queasy.
 
 
“You have to eat.”
 
 
 
“I know.” I mutter, withering.
 
 
 
She arranges my right elbow on the table, places the plate on the elevated platform. I tepidly stab at the already hardening omelette, tears welling up in my eyes.
 
 
 
I take a bite and prepare to retch but instead concentrate on the saltiness, the firm egg texture, the sharp cheese taste. I start to make it through.
 
 
 
In the other room, my aide is taking her breakfast and I can smell the terpenes in her mango. The scent of her banana peel. The sulphur of her boiled egg. I nearly give up food altogether. I keep going though, knowing that if I can get this down, I won’t feel so bad.
My blood pressure this day betrays me – 117/78. Camouflaging the tumult and turmoil churning in my body.
 
 
 
It has been three days with this migraine. The three 50mg sumatriptans quelling the migraine uprising every time despite my neurological system determined in its authoritarian coup. Each 50mg tablet bringing relief but temporarily taking with it the ability to communicate my thoughts coherently.
 
 
 
It would frustrate me, the amount of masking I needed to do to hide this. To pretend that despite this body blow of a migraine shredding through me, that I am ok. That I am whole. That I am well.
 
 
 
I am thankful that in this moment, in front of this person, I didn’t have to pretend. That I could say I was not well. That I could let it show. That I could cry into my breakfast because breakfast smells today don’t smell good. That voices are too loud. That my skin feels like fire-sandpaper. That I need the dark to protect my eyes. That she could bear witness and keep an eye out without judgement of who I was in that space. Small mercies.
 
 
 
This, mess that I become is preferable to the migraine full on: gripping my insides, taking breath via pain that pharmacy painkillers cannot touch, changing my heartbeat, gutting my will to live utterly.
 
 
 
It’s in the days like today, after the majority of the revolt has subsided, when the pain of muscles being tensed from this battle sets in that I can know what harm I was truly in, how I’ve suffered.
 
 
 
It’s like lying on your back on the ground, bruised and bloodied, tasting the metallic nature of the cuts in your mouth, in awe that you survived. You are hurt, bad. It will take time to recover. You roll over, groan, then stumble to your feet.
Being sick changes the landscape of things. Makes once clear outlines, fuzzy at best. What you knew to be true, be in question. Once lost, now found.
 
 
 
It makes me work more and harder when I am well. To push. To do. To get done.
 
 
 
I know my body hates me a lot of the time for all I put her through. But I have to get through and I have to go forward, whether death is up the road or kneeling by my ear.