I should have been scared, I suppose. The prospects weren’t good. Even if I recovered now, even if my some miracle of fate and god I made it through the surgery, then I was a walking, talking time bomb. Every morning I woke up, there was a twenty-five percent chance that something in my brain would go ‘pop’ and I wouldn’t make it back to my bed that night. I should have been scared.
But I wasn’t. I was–relieved. Everyone lives with the abstract thought that they could die at any moment. There is a general idea and common advice to seize the day because it could be your last. But now, they were telling me exact odds. And that was–freeing.
I tried to keep my face a mask of attentiveness and concern as the doctor explained it all to me, but really I wanted to laugh. From here on out, I couldn’t waste a day. There was a twenty five percent chance it would be my last. I had so much to get done.