Lately, when I wake in the morning, and this phrase passes: “I am so lucky to be alive.” It sets in, and it comes again.

I think it has something to do with the pandemic. I know it has something to do with finding out more about my early years.

I re-requested my records from Fairview University of Minnesota hospital a couple of months ago. I used to work in the medical records department while I was in radiology school. I found some of my records, but at least a dozen years were missing.

When I left the medical records, the big plan was to digitize the medical records warehouse. I am telling you a warehouse: four levels, where aisles stretched and turned every corner of this football-sized stadium warehouse. The walkway platforms and stairs were made of metal with the see-through holes. When you stood on any floor, you could see above and below.

It was numbered and organized as much as could be, but over the years, medical records were shoved, bent, and squeezed in places where even with your best effort, you couldn’t pull them; they were wedged in between.

It had high-tech security and around the clock security presence. We usually went to the warehouse with a partner and security, but when we didn’t have enough staff, one of us went alone, and the security personnel let us in at sat by the door.

One evening, one of the alarms from one corner of the building went off while one of the medical record girls was searching for a chart. The security guard called for assistance but was left to find the source of the alarm disturbance.

The place was so large that the words ricocheted off of the metal stairs and platforms when you yelled or shouted words. The sound echoed, stretched out words, letters, and syllables suspended in the air or dropped altogether.

The security personnel and the medical records girl met – his gun drawn. No one was hurt, but she vowed never to go back.

Things changed after that incident.

Anyway, I re-requested my records – and because of the great digitization – I recently received about 500 pages worth. Most of it is literature. Some of my later years are duplicates, and even though I didn’t ask for labs, about 50 pages are labs and x-rays.

Life is fragile.

I am writing my memoir – but I smile because it is so egotistical to say, isn’t it. As my prof would say, as he laughed, “Get over it.”

Each of us has an enriched story – even if you think it isn’t or think “my story isn’t worth telling.” It is.

We all learn from storytelling, and we do it daily.

I am writing part of my story, up to a certain age – I am not absent from my story, but at times, I have little dialogue. Many others have dialogue, but when I was pretty little, I just did what I was told. And that is apparent in the notes.

I am cutting across major themes, and that is what I hope comes through. Some of these themes are not mine. I am a participant, but not solely mine.

Some passages have blown me away—notes from the nurses, doctors, but primarily nurses.

I remember shifts in my health, turns that radically changed my treatments. I remember my digestive issues, just being in pain more than anything else.

They kept adjusting my enzyme intake for the first few years of my life. I was underweight and needed more calories and more fat to sustain myself. Respirations – just breathing takes energy, and breathing difficulties, take even more energy.

By the time I was four years old, I took 11-12 enzymes per meal. Then when I was almost five years old, it went up to 17 enzymes per meal and 9 enzymes for snacks.

They added a liquid acid reducer and then later a pill form to help reduce the acidity in the digestive system. Today, manufacturers make enzymes with Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPI) for babies.

I was okay for a while at that dosage, but then had pain and digestive issues again.

At six years old, they added mucomyst for me to drink – I cannot tell you how vile mucomyst tastes, a pungent sulfuric taste and smell, but it is a miracle medicine that prevents obstructions and helps thin any mucus in my lungs. I swung it a teaspoon of it with 2-3 ounces of cola or root beer soda. You have to take it like a shot. You think adding a little more cola (always a dark soda) would cover the taste, but it prolongs the unpleasant duration. Swing it back and hope it doesn’t come back up.

I took it every 6 hours, and then after the acute pain decreased, they lowered it to every 12 hours. It does not specify waking hours, but I imagine it was waking hours.  

At seven years old, another change, they reduced my enzyme intake to 10 enzymes per meal and 9 with snacks and added another brand of enzymes. That new brand of enzymes was 13 per meal – 23 enzymes per meal and 9 with snacks. The enzyme intake and mucomyst drink went on for some time.

I knew I took a lot of enzymes, and I knew all I ever did was shovel food, pills, and water in my gut. I spent forever eating, watching the clock, and trying to get the enzymes down.  

I hid a few of my enzymes right around the addition of the new enzyme brand. I hid them under my bed, in a drawer, under some books. They told my mom that kids hide their meds. Beware. She didn’t punish me terribly but walked into my room and pointed out her find. 

What does all this mean?

We ask a lot of the body. Doctors and nurses and our conditions ask a lot of us. The entire world asks a lot of us.

We are fragile beings.

Us – being alive is a gift.

I don’t know how my system made it through the beginning years. I don’t.

I do know, at some point, I stopped trying to figure out what my body needed. Instead, I allowed my body to tell me what it needed.

Same thing: don’t tell the story; allow the story to unfold.

This undoing and redoing though process took a long time, and it was through the help of the teachings of my nurses and doctors at a very young age. They were looking to me for guidance as I was looking to them. I didn’t always tell the whole truth, as I was afraid they would ask more of me, or more things to do. But, if I didn’t tell them the truth, how could they help me?

Always the tension of what to reveal and what to conceal.  

The notion is to walk that line.

We are fragile beings.

Us – being alive is a gift.

I am so lucky to be alive.

You are so lucky to be alive.

Beyond my ability to understand.

Many blessings to you.