Frightening Grant Wahl news

The folks at the Mayo Clinic are so damn good at what they do have made my heart procedures seem like taking the car in for a brake job.

It's been riding in the ambulance with a Darth Vader mask on gasping for breath and waking up face first on the restaurant floor that have me concerned about dropping dead at a softball game.

Heck, a couple of years, I got shocked after a football game once. After screaming like a banshee, marvelling that "wow, the damn thing does work" and scaring my colleagues should have been more of a tell tale moment, but since I felt fine and celebrating my still being here even that out.

No easy answers to all this....

 

I’m 55 years old and single, and I had a minor stroke at work a little less than a year and a half ago.

That’s not the part that scares me.

I was admitted to the hospital but had to spend the night in the emergency room because there were no rooms available upstairs thanks to all the COVIDiots in the hospital.

That’s not the part that scares me.

I was diagnosed with significant high blood pressure that took over 28 hours to get down to the point where they felt comfortable discharging me to send me home.

That’s not the part that scares me.

When they discharged me, I had a bit of a panic attack. Turns out I was terrified of going home and having something much worse happen to me … all alone. And that part still scares me. If my aorta popped tonight, nobody might come check on me for days.

There’s no easy answer here. I only once met someone who made me think I could see myself married to her, and that didn’t work out for various valid reasons. We’d have ended up divorced, maybe sharing a couple of kids, and I’d have ended up putting what little money I made from the newspaper business into child support (and worst-case scenario, also into spousal support). I don’t regret the choices that got me to where I am today, but I can’t help but wish that some things had worked out differently than they did.

 

Liz Lemon didn't even make it 3 episodes into 30 Rock before choking alone in her department and getting freaked out about dying that way.

 

I’ve worked with two people who 60ish, lived alone, and nobody realized anything had happened to them on a Friday until they didn’t show up at work on Monday.

 

Being single and dying with no one noticing is one of my few true fears.

 

I understand what you’re saying, but I’m way more scared of leaving my two young kids behind.

 

Opinion | Grant Wahl Was a Loving Husband. I Will Always Protect His Legacy.

 

Until I found someone last year, I was pretty sure that was how it would end for me.

 

powerful stuff. Especially:

“I didn’t respond to disinformation or harassment on Substack or on social media. I didn’t reply to the email that read: “Now you understand that you killed your poor husband. Karma is a bitch.””

 

ALS is the worst thing in the world.
ALS < cancer, Alzheimer’s, etc.

 

I'm still in early 30s, so maybe I will develop fear later in life, but I've been a bachelor for life and anticipate going the distance (only child, and being alone has never bothered me. Quite like it, actually).

Don't worry at all about dying and being found days later. Getting injured and slowly dying without getting help is more worrisome, but modern technology has lessened those worries.

 

Something clicks in the mid-30’s, at least for me it did, and alone is whole lot more real than it was in my 20’s and early 30’s. Frivolous pursuits lose their ability to drive you, the novelty of life fades and you’re drawn to the only thing that seems to never lose its appeal: being with a family. YMMV.