Just One More Day

Seventy percent of the individuals accosted by an aneurysm within their head will slip into a coma and then pass away that particular day, without realizing what has burst within them.  As I got ready for a full day of writing fiction on Tuesday, March 27th this spring, I felt an odd sensation within the frontal left of my head.  Even though it wasn't an intense pain, I felt it and told myself that it'd be wise to sit down for safety.  About an hour later, I found myself lying on the floor and unable to get up to walk at that moment.  I crawled across a small room and grabbed a phone.  Having called an ambulance, I waited, still aware but feeling odd and vulnerable.

By the end of that day, I'd been delivered to a highly credentialed and gifted neurosurgeon in Atlanta.  Fortunately, he turned attention toward surgery and advised my wife and family that I seemed to be within the thirty percent standing a better chance of getting through alive.  I made it through surgery and then spent two weeks in intensive care, recovering well.  The most important part of recovery involved my own awareness of my ability to write.  The pieces of characters began coming together within the context of the story I had begun in March.  The fictional characters began coming together, coming alive within the friendly home of my head, a head by then seemingly repaired.

It normally takes a year for full recovery after delicate brain surgery such as this.  I progressed at a faster pace than that, according to comments from the surgeon.  Then I sat and continued the creative work I had planned for March 27th...and for other days.  I can focus as sharply as ever on the drudgery involved in the art and craft of writing fiction, concentrating on keeping that fiction alive and well.  Each and every day when the writer is able to take on another blank page or set of blank pages, in any way, is a gift...appreciated more than ever.