A Few (Hopefully Not) Final Thoughts

In 11 days, 13 hours and 42 minutes from the moment that I write these words, I am scheduled to undergo an 8-hour operation to repair my heart. During that time my heart will stop beating, my lungs will stop breathing and my life will hinge on the functioning of sophisticated machinery and the talent of fallible humans. In a very real sense, my survival will be likely but within some meaningful measure of doubt for the full-span of an average work day.

This is my last post, my last considered public statement, before the procedure, and honestly I don’t know what I want to say. I only know that I want to say _something_ to go out with a meaningful thought, something with weight and girth and heft to it as a substantive idea.

I realize that’s my ego taking over, and that what I want to use this internet space for today is probably far removed from what you have any interest in reading. The problem is that impending surgery doesn’t actually make an individual any more deep, insightful or remotely worth listening to than they were when they weren’t scheduled to be opened up like a strip-mall Starbucks. So, I respect the choice you make to not follow down this twisting road of thought with me to what will most likely be a disappointing conclusion, and ultimately meaningless resolution when I likely emerge happy and healthy in the fall.

For the rest of you, let’s just see where this goes. What I want to say is this...

I’m really f*cking scared.

I had a dream not so long ago in which I was wheeled into surgery. This was one of those really disturbing dreams where my brain didn’t clue me in to the fact that I was dreaming. There were no fish floating past the doctor’s head. The nurse wasn’t my eighth grade Phys. Ed. teacher. The surgical lights didn’t shine on a disco ball. It was just very believable.

As the dream wandered toward its end, the anesthetist finally leaned over me and put a mask over my face. I breathed once more and then everything went black. And stayed there, and I remember clearly wondering whether I was going to wake up at all. Ever. When I did wake up, for real, I just laid there and absorbed that feeling. I wasn’t really frightened--that would come later and slowly like the changing of a season--I was just synthesizing this dark feeling of true mortality and the lingering sense of what my own death might feel like. After a while—not that long actually—I drifted back off to sleep and did not dream again.

It stayed with me, though, and out of nowhere that feeling of just ending will pop into my head, because that moment where the mask goes on or the meds get juiced into the IV or whatever it is that anesthesiologists actually do to make you not feel the knife in the chest and the saws on bone, that moment is coming hard and fast. There will be a final breath and hope will hinge on the idea that my whole system will reboot with the hardware upgrade, and my most vital organs will start their second life on the other side.

Any surgery is scary, but I feel like it would be easier to embrace the idea of some kind of spleen removal or appendectomy because the whole time those trusty lungs and heart would be rocking their groove. I’ve had these things kicking around in my chest, keeping me alive every single second basically since Haldeman and Erlichman fell on their sword for poor doomed Nixon. A week from Monday, my heart will not beat.

Mind: blown.

Every time I think of it, everything else seems achingly small by comparison, and the fear—I mean gen-u-ine terror—drops a proto-star into my lower intestines. Have you ever been almost dizzy from fear? Because I have been, a half dozen times this week already. I don’t think I’ve shown it to anyone—odd that my confidant on the matter is a host of a few thousand—and I’ve gone about the busy duty of fixing dinner, managing the creation of articles and playing 13 hours of Assassin’s Creed II as though this were the most ordinary kind of thing.

Because, they tell me it is. Ordinary, that is. They tell me that this is almost routine. They tell me that I should plan for a recovery and then get back to my ordinary life. They tell me not to worry. I could sooner give birth to a litter of pug puppies.

Meanwhile I have to dance around genuine preparations for the possibility that I’ll be dead by a week from Tuesday.

… and I can’t write the rest of that paragraph. That sentence up there feels too much like gunning the car, Thelma-and-Louise-style, toward an apocalyptic mental cliff. I do the things I have to do in disguise. "Might as well brush up the old will," I say, as though I’d just casually thought of it alongside the need to clean the garage and change the oil. Better just make a note of all the bills that have to be paid, you know just in case next month I forget that AT&T is going to want their monthly C-note.

It’s self-deception and avoidance of the first degree, and I just hope I can keep it up right into my 5:00 am ride to the hospital. Let me just get close before I let my emotional seaside cliff go crashing into the deep. Let me get in the same building with people who are legally obliged and permitted to give me some primo-choice narcotics.

Let me go into that sleep of my nightmares well and truly altered. What comes Monday night or Tuesday or in August, the slow pain and crushing exhaustion of recovery will be for some other tomorrow to deal with. I can’t spare thoughts that far ahead yet.

Here’s the thing. All of those paragraphs up there. I think now that I needed all that to preface this next thought, because none of that is what I really want to say. I say all that so that you know this next thing is all the way, full-on considered.

After it all, thirty-eight years as a boy, a man, a father, a husband, a nerd, a jock, a peon, a boss, an irresponsible failure, a proud success, a writer, a hack, a fraud, a liar, an honest man. In the wake of it all, looking back, I find that I regret nothing. There was nothing I could have done to stop my heart from degrading or to stop my aorta from bulging, and all the other things I did led me to this place and this life that I genuinely don’t want to give up. Not by a long shot.

I’ve been ridiculously lucky time and again. I’ve lived in a world where “it’s all going to work out, somehow” was always (always!) true. I never failed to find my way to the things that I need, and usually along the way managed to find a path to the things I wanted too. It’s not a complex or big-ticket life, but it’s mine and there’s nothing on the grand scale that I would have changed, because that path leads to this place and this place is mine.

So that’s it, I guess. I assume I’ll be back to talking about iPads and gaming with a broken sternum in a few months. If you’re putting down money, odds are pretty good that this post will just be a whole bunch of maudlin theater in a few weeks. But this, this empty page waiting for words, is where I can say things I can’t say out loud.

Thank you.

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No, thank you.
Best of luck and you will be in my thoughts.

Thank you, Sean. See you in 12 days.

Damn. That is scary. I wish you all the best, and am sure that many other people will join me in saying 'See you soon, Sean'.

Elysium wrote:

...it’s mine and there’s nothing on the grand scale that I would have changed, because that path leads to this place and this place is mine.

Thank you.

Catch you on the flip side.

Thanks for the, as you say, "maudlin theater." It isn't, and I salute you for being so open and honest with all of us. I'm sure you know by now the amazing things they can do in the OR (I had a cardiac cath two months ago, insignificant by comparison.) I'm sure you will have the best treatment and service. Keep us posted, please, and best wishes!

God bless ya, man.

Life's kind of funny like that. I've never stood face to face with my own mortality the way you're having to right now, but there's absolutely something frightening about having to deal with everything associated with it. Writing a will out, making sure all your affairs are in order, that your wife and kids will be fine should, heaven forbid, things not go as you fully expect them to. It truly is a genuinely scary thing to do.

Anyway, good luck. We'll be here waiting on the other side.

This is a really lovely piece. Very touching to read.

I know it's not going to be for some time, but definitely looking forward to your return to the show when you're patched up. In the meantime, wishing you a speedy recovery and many distractions for the next week.

I find it a testament to this community that you would want to share these thoughts here. I find it a testament to the man you are that you would share these words at all.

Thank you for all your contributions past, present and future. Looking forward to seeing you again down the road.

You are in our thoughts. I'm looking forward to seeing you, again, at PAX.

Best of luck to you, Sean.

In retrospect, you'll realize that the surgery and recovery were the easy parts. The hard part will be looking back on your thoughts and these words and continue to appreciate what life has given you as much as you did this day.

Catch you in a fortnight, buddy.

D-

Thanks for sharing, Sean. I try not to worry about things that I can't control, but some things are too primal to really keep your cool about. I imagine that even really knowing the situation can't offset the worry.

I'll be thinking of you and hoping for your speedy recovery.

Good luck to you, sir. You'll find that we'll all still be here when you wake up.

Be sure someone in the OR has a box of Junior Mints, Sean. You never know when those might come in handy for medical reasons.

I have lurked around this site without posting for a long time now. Several articles have driven me to the point of almost commenting, but this piece has touched me like no other has on this site. Thank you Sean, both for this article, and for all of the other great articles/commentary that have influenced my life in recent years. You will be in my thoughts, and I wish you a speedy recovery.

Great piece. All the best.

Best of wishes.

Best of luck, and wishing you a speedy recovery. And thank you for writing this, and all your work on the site.

Also, to be that asshole, I think you probably meant "mortality" not "morality" in paragraph 7.

Good luck brother.

To paraphrase Arnie..

"YOU'LL be back".

Very best wishes, mate.

All our thoughts are with you, Elysia and the kids.

Best thoughts.

I try not to worry about things that I can't control, but some things are too primal to really keep your cool about. I imagine that even really knowing the situation can't offset the worry.

This sums up my feelings perfectly.

Good luck, Sean. I'm sure you'll be lamenting how entitled gamers act again in to time.

Good luck mate, look forward to hearing from you in a couple of weeks!

Thank you for sharing this with us. It does help put things in perspective.

Good luck, and I look forward to your speedy recovery.

While you know me not at all, I feel as though I know at least part of you via your contributions to the site and the podcast and can say with absolute sincerity that I wish you and your family the best and I hope for your quick recovery. Take care.

Can't wait to see your first "Maximum Verbosity" after the surgery! You'll be in my thoughts 11 days and some odd hours from now.

Best of luck to you Sean. Hope everything turns out okay for you.

Our thoughts are with you, big man. Hold fast.

Little challenge for you, Elyisum.

WHen I had an operation - big, but not as big as yours - the anaesthesiologist took my blood pressure before putting me under. As a little challenge, I tried to bring my BP down (relaxation technique) and asked him to tell me what it was.

Unfortunately it was still quite high at 160 something, but hey - I was on a gurney.

Let's see if you can beat my BP (lower, of course). You can post to the forum when you're back at home.

My thoughts and prayers are with you man.

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