27 years ago....

Twenty-seven years ago TODAY, life as I knew it at the time nearly ended. Not the "omg I just got caught by my parents doing something bad and they punished me in front of my friends" kind of life is over - I mean, a real, actual scare where no one really knew at the time how things would turn out for me. Yep, at the tender age of seven, what should never have happened after a "routine tonsilectomy" became my reality and I hemorrhaged. I lost somewhere very near the 'you shouldn't have survived this' amount of blood, through my mouth, as though I was getting sick to my stomach. 

But, for some reason I'll never know and can only try to understand, I was spared. The bleeding stopped on its own, and although I was rushed from Hanna Hospital in an ambulance to the bigger, more advanced hospital in Drumheller, there were multiple units of blood waiting for me in the trauma room. And, once again, for reasons I will never know nor can I try to understand, despite having lost so much blood by volume, I was spared having to have blood transfusions. 

In 1987, during the height of the tainted blood scandal in Canada, I was spared from having to have a blood transfusion. I don't know if that will ever completely sink in for me - in a world where so many good people have bad things happen an who don't get an outcome like mine, I get to ponder why it wasn't my time. 

I'm genuinely in the hopes that my hemorrhage, and being able to live through it, can be a catalyst in my life to realize the writing on the wall and make the changes I need to make to ensue that MY second chance is not a squandered one.