Well, I think I said all I really needed to say at the one year anniversary of my cardiac arrest – you can read about that here.

But I still wanted to throw a few remembrances up here to mark the occasion. What’s interesting to me is that even before I was really making memories again (because of the medications, etc) I got back some of my sense of humor.

Apparently I still felt waaaay out of it, as you can see here:

But I REALLY loved that oxygen mask…

It’s always nice to get a dose of high-percentage oxygen while pretending to be Darth Vader!

I woke up a couple times before being back to myself, which was about a week later on February 24th. Here’s a picture of me in my natural state – on the iPad :)

I like this picture because it’s the first one where I seem normal – holding my head up, looking focused – after the event. I think it’s good to mark these “traumaversary” days with thankfulness – and I am.

It’s amazing how little Atticus was then, how big he is now, and how that amazing personality is shining through. I loved how my kiddos came around me. Those notes and hugs are so precious to me. I have saved many of the drawings, notes, and other ephemera that came to me in that room in Utica, NY.

I have scars on my arm from where the port was in, and scars on my nose from where I tore out my intubation… man, I’m glad I don’t remember some of that stuff… throwing up, aspirating on the vomit… ugh.

Glad to be on this side of it. And to have worked out enough to shrink that massive neck paunch I had back then. Sheesh!