10 Lessons from a near-death experience

정확히 10년 전 오늘의 일입니다. 저널리스트였던 캐서린 케냐는 아프가니스탄에서 취재를 하던 중 알 카에다의 수류탄 공격을 받습니다. 자동차에 타고 있던 케서린은 오른쪽 다리에 부상을 입었을 뿐 아니라 온 몸에 파편을 뒤집어썼습니다. 이후 3개 대륙에서 10여 차례가 넘는 수술을 받아야 했습니다. 이 사고 이후 자신이 얻은 경험을 쓴 글입니다.

<Kathleen Kenna offers 10 lessons from her near-death experience in Afghanistan>

There is light when you face death. I know, because I’ve faced it a few times since March 4, 2002. There is also light after darkness. I know, because I’ve been at the edge of the abyss many times in the decade since I was ambushed in an alleged Al Qaeda attack while covering the Afghanistan war for the Star. The homemade grenade (IED) thrown at my car has meant dozens of surgeries on three continents. I have extensive injuries to my right leg and shrapnel is still peppered throughout my body, but I celebrate being alive. Near-death taught me a few things:

 

1.  Horror doesn’t end with war

It wasn’t until 2009, when I Googled my husband’s name for a story, that I realized the depth of our horror. Hadi, who had been with me in Afghanistan, had saved my life, rescuing me from our bombed vehicle. My online search produced a photograph of the attack that I had never seen.

“What’s that on your head?” I asked.

“You,” he replied, “the rest of you.”

What appeared to be a flesh-coloured head covering was flesh — mine. This is known as biological shrapnel.

It didn’t matter then, because Hadi was in shock and I was near-dead.

Yet that image still alarms, and I’m still in awe of all that Hadi endured to save me.

 

2.  Love heals all

After the bomb, I felt myself dying. I knew it would be far easier to just let go.

My eyes were open but I was in darkness. I felt the chill of death spreading. I whispered goodbye to Hadi and apologized for not being able to stay. We had been married 15 months and he desperately urged me to hang on. When a tunnel of light appeared, seeming to offer comfort in the darkness, I told God I wasn’t ready. I didn’t bargain; I simply said I wouldn’t leave Hadi alone in the desert.

 

3.  Hope is essential

I was near-suicidal for some time because of pain and disability, so offered a simple daily prayer to hang on: one. Small. Thing.

In hospital for months, I repeated these words every day, forcing myself to concentrate on one small thing that made life worth living: blue sky appearing through a window high above the bed; Hadi’s sweet face every morning in hospital; my mom and siblings taking turns at my side, from Germany to Canada; the nurse who wept, yanking 100 metal staples from skin grafts.

This practice continued through recovery and only grew as I regained mobility. I celebrated each victory through two years of rehabilitation with such positive affirmations. I learned to walk again with three words: Healthy. Strong. Calm. I assign a word to each step, over and over.

I switch the word order for new challenges. Ten years later, daily gratitude — sometimes in the form of a gratitude blog, to help others suffering from trauma — keeps despair at bay.

 

4.  Faith transcends the darkness

Strong faith in God has kept me optimistic. Although I was at the edge of the abyss for years after the attack, it was never so dark that I would fall deliberately. Faith and love gave me the resilience to adjust to disability, job loss and more in the past decade.

 

5.  The upside of down

“You don’t look disabled.”

This is the most common reaction since my final surgery in 2003, as I moved from anger to adjusting to loss of mobility. I wear a custom-made leg brace, but few see it because I stopped wearing dresses. It took years to accept the disfigurement, scarring and visible shrapnel embedded from torso to ankles. Longer still to accept disability and the loss of independence.

However, I’ve learned to deal with chronic pain, and some days can be grateful for its constant reminder that I can move. And I have found my second career — rehabilitation counselling, working with people with disabilities.

 

6.  The brain is resilient

Disability barred me from returning to my Star bureau in India (I needed regular medical care then) so I left journalism — my dream career since childhood. I returned to school to study language, psychology and disability. I needed this: traumatic brain injury (TBI) had affected my speech and cognition and I wanted to be sure of recovery.

Also, I wanted to give back to those who had helped me.

At San Francisco State University’s graduate program in rehabilitation counselling, I devoted my research and training to helping Iraq and Afghanistan war vets. I later persuaded the department of veterans affairs (VA) to let me join its experts in postgraduate, clinical training in treating TBI and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). I graduated with honours, proving that the brain can heal, after near-death.

 

7.  Giving

I’ve always done volunteer work, guided by elders who taught me that it’s vital to help others. During rehab, volunteer work helped soothe my losses: I believed I would never write again, so taught writing instead to high school students. My mobility was reduced, so I trained to be a kayak guide for paddlers with disabilities. (Kayaking is such a passion, I was on the water before I could walk again, unaided, in my first post-attack year.)

Because the U.S. military risked their lives to save mine, I made a personal commitment to repay their selflessness.

I volunteered Saturday mornings with elder veterans at the VA hospital in San Francisco for three years during school. I read books aloud and shared funny stories with men and women who had served in World War II, Korea and other conflicts.

I almost “bled out” after the attack and soldiers lined up in the dark for hours in the desert cold to donate during life-saving surgery at Bagram Air Base. I joke that I became a regular donor because I had so much American blood to give back. They gave so much, my blood type changed. It’s O-negative and it was O-positive, but it’s the Anti-D, Anti-C antibodies that make the difference.

The American Red Cross informed me this new blood is so precious, it’s known as “baby blood” because of its value to newborns. I was so eager to work with war wounded, I persuaded Swords to Plowshares, one of the best veterans’ non-profits in the U.S., to accept me as an intern during my final school year. Counselling homeless vets, from the Vietnam era to current wars, convinced me I had chosen the best career.

 

8.  Some war wounds may never heal

Eight years after the attack, I was diagnosed with PTSD.

The first clue? I woke to the stench of burning flesh.

I had been having nightmares about Afghanistan, which was unusual, so many years later. I was having flashbacks during the day, too.

I told my therapist I was never aware of smelling my own flesh, shredded in the explosion, although I was aware of the warmth of the blood.

My pain was manageable after I ended all medications in 2008, but now it was often unbearable. The pain can be severe enough to spark suicidal thoughts again.

Nine years later, I started have leg spasms day and night, which sometimes rendered my leg immobile.

After graduation, I was hired by California’s department of rehabilitation. Within months, I was promoted to veterans’ liaison, working with disabled veterans and all agencies connected with returning vets. I lost my job in state slashbacks, and after two years of contract work in another state, I couldn’t get counselling work — despite 200 applications.

I lost my health insurance and was rejected for coverage, while unemployed, because of “a pre-existing condition” — disability.

I sought therapy when I couldn’t handle all this, especially after we were threatened during an escalation of neighbourhood violence.

 

9.  It takes experts to learn how to breathe

It took a pain management course at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, and a Master’s degree in rehabilitation counselling to teach me how to breathe. Truly. Always a workaholic with great passion for journalism, I had to learn to slow down, to breathe deeply and to relax. Staying healthy helps as much with psychological recovery as it does in repairing the body. Yoga, meditation and daily hikes are essential.

I eat well, sleep well and live well, a life of mindfulness more joyful than pre-disability.

 

10. Celebrating life

After emerging from a medically induced coma, I vowed to walk again unaided within one year. I progressed from wheelchair to walker to cane, marking the first anniversary by walking without help.

Hadi and I labelled this anniversary “Celebrate Life Day.” Each year, we travel or go to the ocean for a day to celebrate in privacy. We don’t work, check Facebook, answer the phone or meet people.

We celebrate life, in joy and love and hope.

 

By KATHLEEN KENNA(Special to the STAR)

From TORNTO STAR Sun Mar 4 2012, INSIGHT & BOOKS Page 4 & 5