4:00am

In the still of deep night I can finally think. Through exhaustion and frustration I can feel the quiet surround me. Comfort me. I am safe here.

I don't feel safe anywhere, really. My own blood almost killed me. My blood. The stuff that comes out of my body every month. The stuff that pours from my nose every day. My blood clots too much. Clotting -- that process by which our blood saves our lives. I have to take medicine that thins my blood and makes it no longer save me from bleeding to death. If I cut my finger off while chopping onions for dinner, I could bleed to death. If I fall and hit my nose against something I could bleed to death. Hell, just blowing my nose makes it bleed right now. What happens if I get gay bashed? Raped? The option of just trying to survive an attack isn't really there anymore.

I know. I live in Vermont. I'm not likely to get bashed or raped. It's not likely I'll cut my finger off, or even fall on my face.

I've tried not to wallow in what happened, how I could have deduced what was wrong, why I never thought of DVT as a possibility, and why I never pushed the issue of my deep sense that something was wrong in my body. I haven't been very successful.

The more I read about DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis, I should make a glossary) the more I realize that what I thought was a pulled muscle in my thigh/groin was probably a blood clot. I rode in a car, trotted all over Florida, rode in a car, then gallivanted all over Montpelier with a freaking blood clot in my leg. At any moment my body could have pushed that clot into my heart and killed me. Or into my brain and I could have had a stroke. If that doesn't make someone ponder the existence of a higher power...

Or the power of fate, or luck, or whatever. I'm not a "divine plan" kind of gal, really. Or rather, I don't think whatever higher power that "planned" us continues to plan and micromanage. I think of Divinity as if we're little wind-up dolls. Gd wound up this existence and is watching. Maybe once in a while, ze intervenes and makes sure all the dolls don't fall off the cosmic table. But for the most part, no interference. I think. I admit I'm not really sure. But this is my best guess. So the wind-up doll that is me wasn't plucked from the brink of death by Gd or anything. I simply didn't wind down as quickly as another doll might have.

But really. What happened? I got a blood clot, it broke up, traveled through my heart into my lungs and did serious damage.

(I'll finish this at some point)