Second Time Around

Four days after they opened my chest and stitched me back together, they told me I could go home, May 16, 2025. I was nervous—unsure if it was really time. After eight hours of surgery, my heartbeat was now louder and stronger than I’ve ever felt it. I could hear it. It was tripping me out a bit.

I woke up in the ICU. I felt like a Mack truck smacked into me dead on at full speed. My arms, shoulders, and clavicle—from left to right—felt shattered. It hurt to breathe.

I spent the night there puking my face off, squeezing my chest so hard—with an audience of nurses staring at me—terrified my chest was going to rip open.

My body rejected the Hydromorphone. The puking was savage—nonstop, gut-wrenching. Pain on top of pain. I told them no more drugs. I’d rather suffer than throw up again. That’s how bad it was.

I was there for it—1000% present. Awake for all of it this time. No psychosis, no fog. I remember everything. I felt it all.

My chest trembled with every breath, and it felt heavy as fuck—like a mountain was sitting on top of me. Each inhale made it heavier, like my body wasn’t quite ready to trust itself yet.

My sternum was wired shut—8-10 ridged inches of raw, ragged flesh stitched and bound tight, holding together the wreckage of my chest.

Every breath pulled at the stitches like a cruel reminder of the violent fracture beneath—bone cracked open, muscle torn, skin stretched thin, all fighting to heal while screaming in pain. Like every poke, every tube, every stitch was some sick reminder that I barely made it out alive.

They ran three artery lines—one straight into my neck. It looked like my airbrush gun from my spray tanning days, but instead of bronzer, it was tubes-snaking out in every direction. I looked like something out of RoboCop and I sounded like Chewbacca.

They pulled the wires from my heart like roots being yanked from the dirt. The drains and the tube in my lungs, anchored deep into my core, were pulled out like grief I hadn’t made peace with—slow, burning, and heavy with everything else that needed to be released. It was a kind of pain that doesn’t really have a proper scale or definition—a pain so unique and disorienting words can’t describe it.

That hospital smell still clings to me. That pungent, sterile, sweet scent—buried deep in the nurses' scrubs and soaked into the skin of hands that meant well but now make me flinch. Even now, I can taste it in the back of my throat, like it’s stuck in my senses forever.

My hands were a battlefield after that. Two veins blown out, one in each wrist from all the needles and IVs, skin stained with purple, blue, and yellow bruising everywhere. The three drains and lung tube left holes. My arms and hands looked like they’d been through war.

Then there were the welts—inflamed, scattered across my chest and stomach from an allergic reaction to the medical adhesive. They wrapped it around me every where like unwanted war medals, stuck to my skin as reminders of a battle I never volunteered to fight.

The machines that surrounded me beeped constantly, and each sound was a taunt—an alarm that stabbed at my chest and rattled my already scattered nerves. Those four nights were endless and sleepless, filled with noise and pain and fear. I laid there trying to stay calm, terrified my heart was going to go into AFib again.

Rising from bed each time felt like being crushed beneath the weight of everything I’ve carried for years—the emotional, the physical, the invisible heaviness that surgery only brought closer to the surface. At times, it was so suffocating I didn’t know if I was healing or just surviving.

Then there was the intubation tube. It had been taped so tightly to my mouth, to secure its place, it tore away a layer of skin off my lip when removed.

The left side of my lip swelled up—raw and angry—felt like sandpaper underneath. For days it stayed like that—fat, cracked, irritated, and swollen—until a cluster of cold sores appeared: four or five blisters, painful and stubborn, like one last slap on the way out.

But I can feel it—my ribcage slowly mending, bone by bone, breath by breath. The pain is still there, but it’s fading. The PTSD doesn’t own me, even though it tried. I’m reclaiming myself, piece by piece.

I’m still sore, but I’m not silent. Still scarred, but no longer owned by what happened to me. What broke me doesn’t get to keep me. My body is repairing, and my soul—restored, claiming its place in my new heart.

On day three it hit me—I was fixed. I laid there that morning on a 40-degree angle surrounded by pillows and cried like a baby—realizing I’m out of limbo, it’s finally over.

I made it through the fire, and I have my whole life still in front of me—free from the darkness that once consumed me.

I’ve been cracked open and put back together—twice now—and somehow, that second time opened something bigger: it released all that was festering inside me that had surfaced two years ago. It no longer resides in me—I’m free.

I feel lighter. Cleaner. Clearer. Healing will take weeks, months and I’m A-OK with that. I’ll be in bed until at least the middle of July, and I’m not rushing a damn thing. The second half of my life is waiting—with all this clarity and wisdom—but the urgency is gone. I’m finally at peace with taking my time.

Spirit guided me this far—lifted the dust off my soul and showed me what it means to truly live. Not just survive, but live with fierce peace, raw gratitude, and a joy born from fire. 

I thought I was finished—thought it was the end. But Spirit wasn’t done with me. It gave me a second chance, a sacred gift—I won’t waste it.

This rare, hard-earned gift—demands everything I’ve got.

This second shot—I’m using it to make noise, leave my mark, and live wide open. I’ll start where I stand, make change in my own yard—and let it grow from there.