How 2020 became Year Zero

There is a lot that 2020 brought on a global scale but I mean on a personal level, I was forced to sit my ass down and rethink everything.

I spent A LOT of time in the hospital in 2020 to a MAJOR surgery and recovery process along with lifelong changes.

This is the story of How 2020 became Year Zero (edited for brevity, somewhat 🤷‍♂️)…

Prologue

2020 was a HELL of a year. And a key takeaway from this year is that I NEED to get ALL my ducks in a row, and keep them there.

Let me start from the top:

On July 24th, 2020, I found myself in the hospital, getting a spinal tap.

Why?

Something was seriously wrong.

Prior to this moment, I was chugging Gatorade all week, and going through hot and cold flashes and eating nothing much. Assuming I had a super aggressive bout of food poisoning, I learned I was wrong.

There were times where I had no energy. After sleeping 10-12 hours at night and upon waking up, I would be sluggish.

And not only that, about 2-4 hours after waking up, I had to take a nap.

Not by choice, mind you. Really, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. My body would literally start to pass out.

I never had food poisoning before so I thought all of this was par for the course. Wrong again.

I asked my neighbor to keep an eye on me. Many other symptoms were weird and since I lived alone, I wanted to make sure everything was on the up and up.

July 24, 2020

On July 24, 2020, they said I didn’t look good and they were taking me to the hospital. I relented a little, asking them to give me time to pack a bag of essential stuff (phone chargers, documentation, a wallet, some clothes, etc).

I may have been sick but I wasn’t stupid. Going to a hospital in the middle of a pandemic meant things would be super busy and I could be waiting for a while.

As I was packing, my neighbor would knock on the door every 5 minutes or so, asking if I was done packing.

“Not yet. It has only be 5 minutes, give me a little more time” I say as I closed the door.

5 minutes later….knock knock knock.

This went on for about 2 more times until my neighbor knocked one last time.

“I only wanted 5 minutes so I can work through this.” I retorted, clearly irritated as I opened the door.

“Paris, it’s been 4 hours. I called your mom and she will be here shortly”.

---

The Hospital Visit

I awake in a hospital bed on July 25th 2020, confused and aching. The time was about 7:00am in the morning.

Clearly I was given shots and a battery of tests were run all while I was knocked out.

The doctor came in and told me what was up.

“Hi Paris, I am Doctor Nunya. You seem to have picked up an infection. This infection caused a variety of symptoms, one of which was the mini stroke you had yesterday. That’s why you fuzzy on the passage of time. We found the source of the infection…”

I was secretly wishing this major surgery wasn’t TOO MAJOR.

The doctor continues. “We will have do this surgery in order to remove the infection completely and it is scheduled for August 4, 2020.”

My heart sank. Literally.

The only thing I was hoping he wouldn’t say, he says: Open Heart Surgery.

I sat there dumbfounded. Prior to this, I never had ANY issues with my heart in my 34 years of life. I never had surgery or been in an hospital for more than a nose bleed. Hell, I never had any prior conditions nor long-term health issues. At the time, I was doing everything right (eating right, tracking calories, working out, etc.)

And yet, there we were.

---

In the year 2020 to end all years, I was told by a doctor that I had 1) a major infection, 2) a stroke, and 3) I will need OHS to remove the infection.

My operation was on Monday, August 3rd 2020 at 8:00 AM sharp. I was in the Operating Room and getting prepped while they prepped and put me to sleep.

Prior to this, I never had ANY issues with my heart in my 34 years of life. Hell, I never had surgery or been in an hospital for more than a nose bleed…

Of course not everything went smoothly. SPOILER WARNING: I lived.

Post-Surgery

It was like a scene out of a movie. I was woken up by a very nice nurse in the Intensive Care Unit.

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was this very nice female nurse…screaming at me, telling me that I NEEDED to breathe.

I am sorry, WHAT? Apparently, a few things happened. The first thing is that I had tube down my throat that kept me breathing through out the operation and such.

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was this very nice female nurse…screaming at me, telling me that I NEEDED to breathe.

And secondly, it was dark outside. I asked the nurse how long was I under. I should have been out of the operating room around 3:00PM at the latest.

Her response came quick: “It’s Tuesday, August 4th, 5:30 AM.”

There were complications during the surgery, hence the reason why I was under so long. These additional complications changed my life and gave me lifelong pre-existing conditions as well.

Suffice it to say, I consider August 4th my second birthday now. Year Zero led me to having another day to celebrate being alive. We can make our own rules in life and follow them. The only thing we have to be ready for is to deal with the consequences.

I am going to cut the story here because there was a lot of changes, weeks of recovery, and other things tied to personal recovery.

Year Zero

But I do want to bring to light a few things:

1. The Infection – As of the date of this writing, NO ONE knows where the infection came from. From months of testing before, during, and after the hospital visit with everything under the sun, the infection never regrew in the lab. So as it stands now, this infection was magic (in my non-expert opinion). The infectious disease specialist say it’s possible that the infection was wiped out prior to the surgery through the bevy of medications I was given. The most interesting part is that I got this infection during quarantine somehow.
   
2. The Isolation – Keep in mind during this time, the hospital didn’t allow ANY visitors (due to COVID). Also also, at the time, I was using a Galaxy Note 9 for my phone. So I went through this entire ordeal alone, which gave me a lot of time to reflect and focus on my next steps. Many months later, one of the first changes I made was to join the Apple ecosystem. I bought an iPhone 12 so I can FaceTime my family now and into the future, because I don’t know what the future holds.

The World I knew is long gone. And as everyone makes promises to get things back to “normal”, I already accepted that the ‘normal’ of 2021 and beyond will not be the same as the normal of 2019, at least for me. If 2020 was anything to go by, I have to toss out all of my prior assumptions and start from zero.