taking a moment off

… to look back in time.

Some of my friends have, after reading through latest revisions of my “life presents its twists and turns” posting in its entirety, expressed some confusion. Despite the post from last year being quite long and detailed, they found it seriously shortened and over-simplified on some, for them, essential points.

Lately they have asked me if my relationship with Gunlaug Solås was not more than enough to make my choice an easy and quick “go for life” that November night in 2013. Why on earth did I have to spend hours thinking through whether to have surgery or not, while my life literally was hanging in a thread?

My answer to them has been, and is now, that “my relationship with Gunlaug was the only factor that complicated matters that night, because it involved the sole living person who meant enough to me to affect how I make serious decisions in life”.

calculating the risk of living

Living is by definition deadly to us humans – no-one has survived yet, but being ready to receive the message that you may only have hours left above ground, is usually not part of our “mental preparedness kit”.

I have been closer to death than that a few times already – hours would have seemed like forever back then, and I have had to think about life and death many times over the years. So, maybe I was – at least in some sense – better prepared than most when I got the diagnosis.

What I felt that I was not properly prepared for, was a condition “somewhere in between life (as I knew it), and death”. That is why I told the surgeon that I needed time to think it through … which is what I spent the next few hours doing.

I almost scared myself that night back in November 2013, as I did not notice any emotional disturbances from within as I slowly walked around in the dark in front of the hospital building.

I was quietly and methodically weighing back and forth between the few, very limited, options I had, and the potential outcomes of each. It was a dark night indeed.

I felt absolutely no fear of death or anything during those hours, and, seriously, I felt that everything I had going on in life was finished off and easy to leave behind right there and then. That is; except for my life with Gunlaug.

In my opinion: the main, and maybe the only, reason I feel I have had such a good life, is that Gunlaug has been at my side through ups and downs for nearly two decades. We all need someone next to us, and Gunlaug has been, and is, that someone to me; as I hope I have been, and will continue to be, to her.

No obvious reason for her to hold on to me for all these years, apart from that mysterious thing called love. For some strange reasons love has held us together, even if it has been strained really hard at times.

That girl is not only my wife, but also my very best friend.

Thus, what mattered to me that November night was: in this unfortunate situation I now found myself in, what would be the least damaging outcome for her…

Figuring out the outcome was like rolling dice, and I am not much for this kind of game when my own and my loved one's happiness is at stake. Right there and then I didn't have much choice though, I had to think it through.

Chances were that I might survive this ordeal but become permanently crippled – a condition “somewhere in between life and death”. I might for instance lose one or both legs in the process, or later, as the surgeon had informed me was a real possibility if the damage caused by blocked and/or reduced blood-flow had spread too far.

In addition to causing physical problems I would have had to overcome, being severely handicapped most likely would have turned me mentally into something I'd hate to be … something it likely would have taken me years to overcome, if I ever managed to.

alternative scenarios…

a) If I had been living alone and only had myself to think of – as was the case up until Gunlaug came into my life, the actual outcome of surgery would not have mattered. No-one but me would have been directly affected by whatever happened at the operating table anyway, and I was more than ready to go.

b) If my relationship had been such that my spouse did not matter to me anymore, and/or vice versa, the outcome of surgery had not mattered. There simply would have been nothing to gain or lose either way.

In both cases I could have gone for surgery without thinking twice about it.

If I had come out alive but with a less than favorable result, I could have dealt with it pretty much as I found best afterwards, without affecting anyone but myself. Not coming out alive would of course not have caused me any problems.

As it were, none of these alternative scenarios was real – it wasn't all about me. Therein laid the problem I tried to find the best solution for that night.

I have had enough problems living with myself at times, despite Gunlaug's support. Coming home after surgery with a serious handicap and a dark mind, might make me more difficult to live with than I have ever been in the past. I have a strong feeling not even Gunlaug could have handled that.

why recycle history

Throughout her adult life Gunlaug definitely has had more than her fair share of health-related problems to deal with, and far from all have had to do with her own health.
I can not take the blame for much of that – it was before my time. But, I certainly did not feel that that gave me the right to load my problems onto her now … I had at least one other option…

No matter how strong our relationship was, and is … to take on a care-taker and support role that might last for years, would in my opinion simply be too much for her.
Becoming a life-long burden on Gunlaug, and/or making a split-up her only viable option (again), were outcomes I most certainly did not want.

Maybe a very selfish way of looking at it on my part, but just thinking about how much it would hurt me to see Gunlaug struggle because of me in the years to come, almost made me choose against surgery for fear it would not be entirely successful.
As I saw it, if I could no longer be there to support her more or less in line with how she has been taking care of me over the years, it might, over time, be to her advantage that I did not return home.

still around

I chose to go for surgery simply because the pain was about to become too unbearable to live through until I “died of natural causes”. Would have taken days, maybe weeks, to die, unless I quickened the process myself – which I did not like the thought of doing.

Quietly I hoped and prayed that “if they could not fix me properly, they would lose me at the operating table”. As things were, I'd rather be dead and buried, than alive, crippled and impossible to live with.

Obviously, they did not lose me, at the operating table or later. They also kept all my body-parts in place and in acceptable working order. How close they came to failure is not something that worries me now.

honey, I'm home…

For better or worse, I am still around, and at home. My left leg still feels like there is barbed wire between my toes and coarse sand in my socks, and it isn't quite reliable on uneven surfaces yet. But, I am not seriously handicapped.
For instance: when I go shopping or otherwise roam around in town, I doubt if anyone notice anything unusual in how I move. Thus, the outcome of the ordeal seems to be good, and I am getting, and feeling, better day by day in every way possible.

As blood vessels have been replaced and/or repaired, once I have regained my physical strength my body may even be in better shape than it has been for the last decade or so. That is: if I manage to quit my smoking habit in not too long.
I have already tested my endurance capacity by walking up and down and around in the hills on the farm – two-three kilometers (a couple of miles) or so in total. Although damaged and cut nerves disturb a little, and some of the old weaknesses are felt, all in all my capacity is greatly improved.

Now I am well into the process of weaning myself off strong opioids and other pain killers, after having been on heavy doses – not to say “overdoses” – for more than seven months. The good thing is that I don't feel hooked on any of the medication, which makes it rather easy to adjust down as the pain recedes and the periods when I pretty much ignore that I do feel pain grow longer.

Slowly I am getting out of the medically induced brain-fog, and am able to return to a more normal life style. It is good to feel like a human again, as I certainly did not enjoy feeling like being a zombie with all the problems that caused.

Inserted (22.aug.2014) Negative side-effects of the cancer treatment I underwent this summer, are – for the time being at least – causing me lots more pain, problems and irritation than the big operation back in November last year does. I should not have bothered with the cancer treatment in the first place, and right now I feel like I have been permanently vaccinated against any future “cancer treatments”.
Those troublesome side-effects of radiation and medication will hopefully go away too, eventually.

farm assistant out of work…

Gunlaug's quite understandable reaction to the crisis she found herself in when I went down, was to quit dairy farming in December last year. She found the work too much and too hard to cope with while her farm assistant was totally out of action and would be for months.

As the farm is still actively run – mainly by others, and there are animals roaming the pastures, we both now find not having to back it all up with our own hands, to be a positive experience.
Life here on Gunlaug's farm is good – in many ways even better than before.

Don't wait for anyone to bring you flowers.
Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul.

For the first time since I arrived at Gunlaug's farm back in 1995, we can now enjoy many simple pleasures and not worry about anything but ourselves.
Really simple things… like being able to sleep late one morning just because we want to. Or, that we now can go on vacations for days and weeks together, without having to hire in someone to run the farm for us.

This new-found freedom from chores feels really great, and we are making the most out of it.

answers provided

I think this blog post covers, and answers, all questions anyone may have related to the choice I made a cold November night back in 2013. The thoughts behind it and a broad specter of processes around and following it, should also be well covered on this page.

If someone still thinks something is cut short and/or is left out in my writing on the subject, they will simply have to write it off as deliberate censorship on my part. There will always be limits to what I will share on a public web site.

finally

I have reached my carefully specified goal – what I hoped for when I went for surgery. “To be around to support Gunlaug much the same way as she has been taking care of me over the years”. Being in that position makes it all worthwhile.

Now I only have to keep this “mission” of mine going for as long as it takes. For life that is, as expressed in our marriage vows 18 years ago …
(You know: those few words at the end that are so easily ignored, or conveniently forgotten about, when life gets rough.)

Gunlaug shows in a multitude of ways that she is happy having me around, and with me being in good health and mood – not least the latter. Being in good health does of course affect my mood positively, and my wife's happiness and all the positive things going on around me here at home, tops it up.

That I still can make Gunlaug smile just by looking at her, makes me happy. And, the sheer amount of smiles and laughter we share in day-to-day life, is as clear a sign as any that our relationship is good.

Gunlaug's positive state of mind does of course rub off on me in every way possible – and the other way round, and together we keep on living, building, maintaining and planning into the future for this nice and cosy circle of mutual happiness we call “home”…

We really like it here…
… and that is all that matters.

sincerely georg; sign

Hageland 01.aug.2014
06.aug.2014 - added a couple of paragraphs.
07.aug.2014 - slight revision.
10.aug.2014 - minor revisions + added "alternative scenarios" in main article.
12.aug.2014 - very minor revisions.
16.aug.2014 - minor revisions.
22.aug.2014 - added "other relevant links" in side-notes + note about cancer treatment in main article.
02.aug.2014 - added "nonconformity-freethinking-now-considered-mental-illnesses" link in side-notes.
last rev: 02.sep.2014

side notes.

enlightenment‽

Some have actually asked me, if getting a new lease of life has acted as an enlightenment on me. I don't know … maybe … but if so it is only the last in a series of enlightenments in my life.

Believe me or not: it has been fun every time, and I wouldn't mind experiencing a few more enlightenments before I go.

Highly recommended if you have the stomach for it, but I advice against mixing in religion, politics, mysticism and other “guide-lights” in your enlightenments. As long as you keep it all under personal management, I am sure you would not mind having one or more such experiences yourself.

Once it happens – which is the part we have little to no control over, what you make out of an enlightenment is entirely up to you. Again; make sure no-one else get to tell you what to make out of it, or else it won't be your enlightenment. Good luck.

realism or psycho …

no-one to think of in times of crises?

As for people who were on my mind when I thought about life and death, and all else in between, that fateful November night, apart from Gunlaug not a single person mattered there and then.

I have no children, so no problems there. Don't know what difference, if any, it would have made in this situation if I had any. I have not really missed having to raise kids in today's world, so that is all good.

family…

Having five living siblings, with kids who called me “uncle Georg” as they grew up, has for ages been just a fact that carry no additional meaning in the form of family ties or whatever it may be called – not to me anyway. At most the word “relatives” has meant that our common gene-pool has been secured without my help.

I have stayed in touch with a few of my siblings and relatives over the years. Others I simply could not care less about. Some of my young relatives I have never met, and some I may not even know exist. No big deal.

Anyway, no-one in my large family crossed my mind that night. A couple of them did contact me afterwards – once I was out of coma, and that was an alright distraction in the hospital routines.

friends…

Friends are nice to have, and I am blessed with a few really good ones at the moment. But, friends come and go for various reasons, and now and then friends die or disappear out of ones life for other reasons. It is all part of the reality of life, and there is no-one to blame.

Few friendships last the test of time and distance throughout a life, and as I have moved around a bit in my time, many a contact is lost and often no reconnection attempt has been made from either side. It is all good so…

Telling friends what was going on did cross my mind – a practical matter, but otherwise having friends did not affect my decision making process in any way. That friends called and/or visited me afterwards meant a lot to me though.

I relied on a particularly close friend to spread information about the situation I found myself in among our mutual friends, as I neither had time, nor means within reach, to do so myself when disaster struck. Thanks much Herløv.

personal reactions

If there was only one “right” way to react to any of life's many twists and turns, then I could understand why psychology seems to play such a big role in today's societies. But, since there are very few absolute rights or wrongs in how people manage their lives, “healing of human minds” via a framework of authorized psychology is – in my opinion – at best absurd and at worst pure quackery and/or organized oppression.

As I see it, psychology does at least as much damage as good to humans that come under its influence, as it is all too often used to force or trick people with temporary or more lasting mental problems and/or conditions into accepting diagnoses and mental healing paths and solutions that aren't right for them.

Having a diagnosis to attach ones problems to, often makes it easier to cope with same problems. That is true also if/when the diagnosis is totally wrong…

To me, most mental reactions to personal crises, are perfectly normal. It is only when people take their quite understandable personal frustration and anger in a situation out on others, that a line into the potentially unacceptable gets crossed.

No-one has monopoly on definitions of normality, so I see no point in letting anyone – regardless of profession – tell anyone else what is normal, acceptable reactions and/or behavior in crisis, and what is not.

Being near enough to be able to read signs and offer positive support in someone's hour of need, is something we all can do … even if and when we feel that we have very little to offer. But, we should not uninvited go so close that we interfer in other people's lives and minds, unless, and until, our support is wanted.

The only acceptable form for uninvited outside interference or help to personal crisis management – as I see it, is that people should be offered help to prevent them from causing irreparable damage to themselves and/or others while they sort out their own problems.
In very rare cases that may mean that some form for force should, and also must, be used, but use of force against people with mental problems should never be accepted as the norm.

a bunch of cold hard facts

To me most things in life, including death, are just cold hard facts of life and nothing to be impressed by or upset about. We should prepare ourselves the best we can to handle both good and bad issues whenever they occur, because they will.

As far back as I can remember, I have been good at handling hard facts mentally – if not always practically. What can be perceived as a cold and calculated reaction to anything in life, is something I have observed in myself again and again over the years.
This has never been something I have aimed for or been proud of. It has just been an integrated part of being me.

That others handle similarly appearing crises entirely different, or maybe choose to let others handle them on their behalf when that is possible, is in my opinion quite normal. My own somewhat cold and calculated way certainly isn't right for everyone.

Over the years I have also learned not to suppress my gut feelings, as reacting in a form for auto-mode while my brain sorts out the bigger picture, often produces the best results. Experience do pay off, eventually.

time-out…

Now and then I take time off in the middle of the mental reaction to, and handling of, big and small crises, to go through and analyze my own reaction and state of mind. Such self-analyzing is the norm for me at all cross-roads and serious decision making moments, and an important part of my personal crisis management process.

That I take time-outs at crucial times, may throw off people around me. Some perceive it as signs that I have no feelings – which may be somewhat true right there and then because emotions are suppressed as a form for self-preservation. Some also get kind of angry at me, because I treat them as disturbing factors at times when they want to help – another form for self-preservation on my part.

For that reason, among others, I prefer to be left alone with the actual reaction to, and initial handling of, what I persive as critical moments in my life. Going for solitude in situations that others may find hard to manage on their own, can be seen as a way of life for me – I am not part of a pack.

post-processing…

All significant events – good or bad – that we can walk away from alive, must be finished off one way or another, at least mentally if not always practically. Otherwise they will add to our “burdens of unfinished business” – happenings that keep on resurfacing in our minds with regrets and other emotional reactions.

Unfinished business disturbs, can cause irrational reactions to future events, and in general slows us down throughout our future life. Ignoring that side of it, can cause irreparable damage in our short lives on earth. Better get it over with as soon as possible, no matter how painful it some times may be.

Knowing and understanding my own initial, and following, reactions to whatever life sends my way, is of immense help throughout the post-processing phase.
While living through an event I am often able to sort out, and sometimes write down, how I react, and why, in quite some details. This is what “time-outs” are used for, among other things.

Notes and thoughts jotted down while events evolve, will not make much sense to others without some serious editing – they are for my eyes only. They do however assure that I get all important facts right if I choose to make parts of a story public at a later date – like now. When you come out of the storm,
you won't be the same person that walked in.
That's what the storm is all about.
— Haruki Murakami

To me at least it is rarely ever possible to enter post-processing right after a bad event is over. First all the various emotions that follow an event, must be given time to settle on a level where they can be handled more or less rationally.

Having emotional reactions every time an event resurfaces in my mind, is both natural and necessary, but such emotions must at least be controllable for post-processing to work.

It may then take days, weeks, months and even years to fully process an event. However, as long as I allow myself to go through the painful experience it can be to relive all sides of a bad event, sooner or later I get to the point where I can draw lessons from it, and otherwise put it all behind me.