Well Friends,
Here I am at the hospital for the 2nd time in three weeks, getting a blood transfusion. This time I’m not in such bad shape as three weeks ago. I’m recovering slowly. As you know, I have been going great gun, or so I thought, during the past month in the sense that I was able to sleep, eat, and function pretty well in spite of the immobility. Then I started running a fever three weeks ago. It turned out be pneumonia. At first, I did not understand the gravity of the situation until the doctor came in and asked me to consider whether I want to continue with fighting the pneumonia or end it now, as some people choose to do it in my situation. I was like, “Huh? No, no, no! I’m not ready to go yet! I still have too many loose ends to tie up.” The next thing I knew, I was wheeled to the ER with the nurse saying “big guns coming up.” For the following two weeks, all kinds of antibiotics, equivalent to atomic/napalm bombs, were dumped into my body. Unfortunately, hospital living is not conducive to rest or recovery either. This unpleasant experience convinced me that the next infection will be my last and I will not try to prolong the process, but rather let nature run its course.
My life during the past few months is a process of narrowing down of options in a series of “last experiences.” For example, my last unaided walking experience happened 2-3 months ago when my friend Dave Christy came to visit. My last “going to the movies” experience happened just before the pneumonia, since then my body can no longer handle the stress, nor the risk of exposure to germs.
I can see life as a highway that is infinitely wide and full of options at the beginning in which a person has the possibility to be anything imaginable. As time goes by, this highway narrows down as the options become more limited and as it becomes obvious whether the person is going to make a big impact, like Hitler or Einstein, or live a less-famous, but nevertheless, interesting life. At the end of the road, the options shut down to only a few.
Throughout my life, I have been blessed in the company of friends whom I can trust and feel comfortable with. I always feel at home no matter where I am or what circumstances I find myself in. This includes my high school and college friends in Thailand, friends at workplaces, friends at the meditation center, friends in the music scene, or friends in the “hanging-loose” scene. I want to thank you for making my life so rich and meaningful.
Note from Bryn:
Kim was discharged from the hospital about a week and a half ago. The chest tube was taken out and he was sent home with an oxygen machine and various antibiotics. Shortly after his return home, he started to experience extreme fatigue and increased difficulty breathing. He was brought back to the ER and was once again admitted to the hospital for a couple days. Tests showed that his lungs still have roughly the same amount of infiltrate in them as while he was in the hospital (meaning that they apparently haven’t healed much) and that he was very anemic. The anemia is due to a new development—internal bleeding in his GI tract. It is only moderate bleeding and the doctors would like to initially try to compensate for it with supplements/medicine and occasional blood transfusions. He got home yesterday and he’s feeling a bit better and has more energy, but he stills needs much time to recover.
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