In marriage, it’s often hard to get your message across.
Especially when it has to get across the Other Side…
“Nuts!” was my first thought, almost immediately followed by “Umm…micro-clots?”
After a long night of trying to find a place to spend the rest of my COVID-cation (aka “quarantine”–catch up on the saga here), I was finally ready to enjoy a hot shower at my luxurious DoubleTree accommodations and then head off to bed.
And just when I thought my supposed time of “relaxation, rest, and recovery” was at last going to be as boring as I had hoped it would be–well, that’s when things really took a sharp turn in the opposite direction.
What was the source of all the newfound excitement? Well, I’ll tell you what it was: it was a pain in the groin–that’s what it was!
I mean that literally, too–all of a sudden I was experiencing an occasional brief-but-sharp discomfort in my inner-thigh/upper dangly-bits region, and of course my mind goes immediately to the most likely explanation: micro-clots.
You see, it just so happened that just a few days previous, I had briefly come across an article in a tech magazine about how more evidence was emerging that linked COVID to an increase in risk for micro blood clots.
Now, did I actually read the article? No! Of course not! I got all I needed from skimming the article’s headline and its accompanying blurb: the half-baked, ill-informed idea that if anybody was going to be lucky enough to develop a fatal case of micro clots from COVID, it was going to be me…
“Uggh…I think I’m going to be sick…”
After a way-too-long and way-too-hot shower, I was getting ready to put my pjs on and hit the hay when a sudden powerful wave of nausea hit me. At first, I thought I just had my towel wrapped too tightly around my bare torso, so I took that off, only to find that nope, my stomach was still very displeased with me.
I immediately made my way to the elevated toilet in the bathroom (I was in a handicap-accessible suite), and subsequently prepared for the possibility that I might have a, um, “blow-out” from either end of my body at any moment.
Yet…relief never came. I would have welcomed vomiting or diarrhea, but instead, my stomach insisted on being indecisive and just felt like it was rotting inside me.
During those few minutes of eternal suffering, I couldn’t help but think about the text conversation I had just had with my mom not but 5 minutes before. It had gone something like, “Hey Mom, I’m having pain in weird places, probably from blood clots, so here’s my hotel address and room number, you know, just in case I stop responding to your texts and calls…”
And her reply was “GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM,” which of course I ignored, because who the hell wants to spend 1am-5am there, where one could easily pick up…um…COVID? (Or, spread it to others, as I guess was my case.)
“I don’t wanna call an ambulance or go to the hospital!” I muttered to myself, right when I noticed that my hands had started tingling and I was becoming real light-headed. And sweating–I started to profusely sweat out of nowhere.
“Oh sh*t, oh sh*t, oh sh*t. Am I about to die?!? Do I need to try to crawl to my phone and dial 9-1-1 with my last fleeting moments of consciousness?!? This is definitely not how I want to be found dead…though this seems par for the course. Oh man. ----- my life.”
It’s somewhat humorous in retrospect, but in the moment, it is ----- scary. I mean, you can’t just assume you’re not going to die in a moment like that, right?
Well, fortunately, the lightheadedness, tingly fingers, and rotting stomach passed after another minute or two, but emotionally the damage was already done. I immediately took a cold shower to try to calm my system down, and while my body seemed to normalize a bit, I couldn’t get my mind off my own mortality…
“I’m not ready to die! No one else in the family knows all the passwords!”
It was 2 am by this point, and I wasn’t about to let myself fall asleep. I had started doing COVID and blood clot research on my phone, and I just couldn’t rule out the possibility that it was a clot that I felt in my inner-groin area–and that it wasn’t on the verge of coming loose with fatal consequences!
Let’s run down the facts real quick, shall we?
Fact 1: The chances of developing blood clots significantly increase in symptomatic COVID patients.
Fact 2: Though normally associated with higher-risk patients in general, incidents of blood clots have occurred in otherwise healthy people as young as 30.
Fact 3: Some might call me ‘lucky’, but a better description of me would be ‘statistically exceptional’–remember, I’m the same guy who almost died at the age of 24 from an exploding bladder. So just because micro-clots killing youngsters is uncommon or unlikely gives me no solace at all. As the saying goes, it would be “just my luck…”
Fact 4: Falling asleep and having a clot-induced stroke probably feel about the same…
Logically, the conclusion one would draw after being presented with these facts would be:1Original source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9t-slLl30E
So I would set my timer for 30 minutes at a time, just to make sure I didn’t fall all the way asleep and end up passing away peacefully.
In the meantime, I did what any normal person who was all alone and didn’t know if they were going to live through the night would do: I Googled “how to schedule a text message on an iPhone.”
Facing down death is never fun, especially when you never got the chance to hug your daughters (and other loved-ones) one last time. Yes, it can be a very emotionally difficult experience. And yes, one might find themselves preemptively shedding a tear or two.
But, Buddy, at some point, ya got to get past all that emotional fuzz and take care of practical matters.
You know, one thing I discovered was that I wasn’t particularly afraid of dying–it’s gotta happen at some point anyways. What is terrifying is the thought of not being able to take care of the ones you love.
Financially? Oh, they’ll be fine without me–I got decent life insurance, and the loss of my salary would mostly go unnoticed on account of the Boss Lady being an insurance executive (#SugarMomma).
Finances? That’s a different story altogether! Believe it or not, I’m the one in the family who almost exclusively takes care of the managing of all our monies. And if I were to pass on, we would likely go bankrupt in 3 months or less.
So in case I died, I had to find some way to make sure my dear widow had all the info she needed, ergo, “how to schedule a text”…
To my relief–and in case you were wondering–I found I could accomplish this using the ShortCuts app on my iPhone, and going to the “Automation” section to set up my ‘fail-safe message.’ Or, as I preferred to think about it, ‘my message from the Other Side.’
Now mind you, this message was to be sent only if “something” happened to me, so the first thing I did was set a reminder to myself–if I were still alive come morning–to turn the danged thing off.
After that, I got down to business of writing my last will and testament to the love of my life. First order of business: when to send it? Well, being the sentimental guy that I am, I figured her receiving a message at 12:29 pm–our anniversary, minus the ‘pm’–would definitely give her the creeps. Er–I mean ‘comfort her grieving heart.’
So, what does one include in a message like this anyways? Well, as you can imagine, that is a very personal and private matter–meaning I will share almost every last detail with you anyway!
Most importantly, I laid out instructions for accessing our password manager, in addition to the password to my laptop and any encrypted Excel spreadsheets that might be financially critical. Oh, and the code to the safe in our bedroom, too–though she should know that one already!
Beyond that, it’s critical to throw in there something sincere-yet-lighthearted–or whatever you think best reflects your personality–letting her know how much you’ll always love her and your kids, etc., etc, yadda yadda yadda.
Penultimately, I recommend you share a video clip that you took at that concert2Link to the full song, ‘Bedlamite’ by Puscifer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIyg7G8e3aA you went to with her–you know, your last date that ended up being the last moments you were able to share together (bonus points if the lyrics just happen to say exactly what you would want to whisper from your grave):
And that’s it!
With that all set up and ready to roll, one can… finally… drift… off… to… peaceful… rest…
I’m not a complete d*ck. May the official record show at least that, Your Honor.
As much I really wanted to prove my cleverness by pranking my freshly bereaved wife into believing that I had figured out how to hack the afterlife, for once I managed to thoughtfully put the needs of others before my own.
Begrudgingly, I tagged the following disclaimer to the bottom of my phantom/fail-safe message before I floated off into the great unknown:
*note: this is a pre-scheduled message (as opposed to proof that I’m a ghost)…
Your Second of Three ‘Ghost’ References
That’s right, drink up, my homies! That’s G-word #2 for you! And, if I somehow survive the night in question, maybe–just maybe–I might be able to find myself needing to use that word a third and final time…stay tuned…
Content created on: 14 October 2022 (Friday)
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