How I'm Going To Die
"I just assume I know how I'm going to die," my brother J says. "And I already know exactly how it feels."
I nod into my phone. "I do exactly the same thing."
This was a conversation today, actually. I was on the phone while driving home from my parents' house.
And it wasn't about suicide.
It was about peanuts.
"I just assume one day I'm going to be off my game and not notice what I'm eating," J says. "And I'll die of anaphylaxis."
"Yeah," I say. "I assume one day I'll have an asthma attack that's too severe, and I'll die gasping and wheezing."
"Yup," he says. "But it'll be easier for me, because if I'm in a situation when I'm likely to die of anaphylaxis, I'm already out of it enough that I won't care as much about pain."
He's sitting outside on his work campus. He has just left a team meeting early, because he's sleep-deprived from a 6AM conference call to Europe and coming down with a cold, and it took him long enough in a room with peanuts that he got woozy before he realized what was going on. He has told his teammates repeatedly that he has allergies, tells them to take allergens outside when he comes across them in their open workspace, and still someone brought peanut bars to the meeting.
The meeting-runner turned to him on his way out and asked him to wait so they could talk about J's new tasks on the project. J didn't wait.
Maybe eventually, when he has the spoons, J will go talk to HR.
"I need to never, ever be sleep-deprived on an airplane," J says. "But I have to be aware and objective enough to decide how much benadryl I need to take so I don't have to tell a flight attendant that they're going to have land the plane right this second or I will die."
Did I mention that J has intermittent insomnia, too?
I don't have a moral for this story. Invisible disabilities suck. And I hope J dies at the age of 128, in his sleep or a really spectacular car accident.
(
comments at Dreamwidth. Comment there.)
I nod into my phone. "I do exactly the same thing."
This was a conversation today, actually. I was on the phone while driving home from my parents' house.
And it wasn't about suicide.
It was about peanuts.
"I just assume one day I'm going to be off my game and not notice what I'm eating," J says. "And I'll die of anaphylaxis."
"Yeah," I say. "I assume one day I'll have an asthma attack that's too severe, and I'll die gasping and wheezing."
"Yup," he says. "But it'll be easier for me, because if I'm in a situation when I'm likely to die of anaphylaxis, I'm already out of it enough that I won't care as much about pain."
He's sitting outside on his work campus. He has just left a team meeting early, because he's sleep-deprived from a 6AM conference call to Europe and coming down with a cold, and it took him long enough in a room with peanuts that he got woozy before he realized what was going on. He has told his teammates repeatedly that he has allergies, tells them to take allergens outside when he comes across them in their open workspace, and still someone brought peanut bars to the meeting.
The meeting-runner turned to him on his way out and asked him to wait so they could talk about J's new tasks on the project. J didn't wait.
Maybe eventually, when he has the spoons, J will go talk to HR.
"I need to never, ever be sleep-deprived on an airplane," J says. "But I have to be aware and objective enough to decide how much benadryl I need to take so I don't have to tell a flight attendant that they're going to have land the plane right this second or I will die."
Did I mention that J has intermittent insomnia, too?
I don't have a moral for this story. Invisible disabilities suck. And I hope J dies at the age of 128, in his sleep or a really spectacular car accident.
(
comments at Dreamwidth. Comment there.)