Good morning without worries – Over My Corpse

It was September 2, 2022. We had had a wonderful warm week in which we had something fun to do with friends every evening. As it happens when you’re young, we had a drink with everyone. On this Friday evening we were preparing for our party. I had turned 30 and Jegor had turned 31. We just hadn’t made it easy for ourselves. It was 10:30 PM and we weren’t done yet. Jegor decided to help with something he was not good at at all, which gave us some words. An hour later we were finally in bed, without talking about the irritation. The clock struck 00:00, we were sleeping, not knowing what was about to happen to us.

Not much later than midnight I woke up with a start. All my internal alarm bells went off and everything in me said that something was wrong. I turned on the light and was shocked by what I saw. Yegor shook on all sides. I knew that epilepsy was a possibility, but I never really thought it would happen. I didn’t do it for sure either, of course I’m not a doctor. Other things crossed my mind, but I pushed them away as quickly as possible. I decided in a split second to leave Jegor and run to the living room. My good friend Anne slept here, who had helped us with the preparations for the party. I turned on the light and shouted in panic for her to call 911. I ran back to the bedroom and there was Jegor still in his attack. Not much later it suddenly became quiet. Yegor was staring and not breathing. I was shocked and it crossed my mind that I was going to lose him. What fear I felt at that moment. Fortunately, his breathing started again. He wanted everything, but couldn’t do anything. He wanted to get up, but he couldn’t. He wanted to talk, but this didn’t work either. Suddenly the paramedics were next to us. It turned out that they had been standing at the waiting area around the corner from us. I was so happy that they got there so quickly. They were calm and tried to calm Jegor down, but Jegor was panicking and to be honest, so was I. Not much later, Yegor started to say some words again. With wide eyes he asked what was going on. A question he asked 100 times. ‘What happened?’, ‘What’s going on?’, ‘Are you going to be okay?’ and ‘Why are you here?’ he asked the paramedics. Yegor was asked to get up, but his arm was in a lot of pain. He could barely move it. We couldn’t wear a sweater, so we quickly took his bathrobe out of the closet.

In the minutes that followed, Jegor was taken outside under the arms of the paramedics, where he was placed on the stretcher. I was asked to take some things for Yegor and get our passports. While Jegor was lying outside on the stretcher, he kept calling me. He was afraid I wouldn’t stay with him. The shouting stressed me out because I felt his panic. In a hurry I gave my friend Anne a hug and we left. On the way to the elevator he kept asking the question what was going on. He had already forgotten what the answer to that question was. When we arrived at the elevator, the paramedic asked what Jegor’s last name was. Chamrai he said. The ambulance brother looked at me because Jegor’s speech had not yet returned properly and asked me how you spelled that. Before I could say anything, Yegor started spelling ‘CHAMRA I’. We all laughed a little. Little by little he came back.

When we arrived downstairs, Jegor was wheeled into the back of the ambulance and I got in the front. Yegor kept calling for me. Whether I was there, whether I went with him and what was going on. The same questions over and over again. Fortunately, the paramedics were really great. The man in the back reassured Jegor again and again and the woman in the front asked me everyday questions and that calmed me down. We even laughed for a while because the paramedic thought I had a different name. Apparently Jegor also forgot what my name was.

When I arrived at the hospital, I had to decide whether I was going to call people. It was the middle of the night. I would give everyone I would call a little trauma. I chose to wake up his mother and Jegor wanted me to inform his best friend Bob. Both were of course very shocked and got into the car as quickly as possible towards Arnhem. Anne had also arrived at the hospital in the meantime. It was so valuable to have all these lovely people around us in this stressful situation.

In the hospital it turned out that Jegor had indeed had a severe epileptic attack. We were told that a large number of people coming in with epilepsy had been drinking. Other triggers could be stress or flashes of light. Stress and alcohol were certainly an issue for Jegor, apart from the fact that he of course has an increased risk of epilepsy anyway due to his previous brain operations. As time went on, Yegor’s speech and memory returned in parts. However, he still had a lot of pain in his shoulder. He could barely move his arm himself. Upon arrival at the hospital, his shoulder had already been examined, but nothing was visible. When the pain relief obtained did not help, I started asking for help again. They finally took pictures a few hours after arrival and it turned out that his shoulder had been dislocated not forwards, but backwards. This was something that the doctor had not noticed with the naked eye because this way of dislocating does not occur often and is less visible. So poor Jegor had been lying out of socket for a few hours. No wonder he was in so much pain. To get his shoulder back into its socket, he was given heavy pain relief. He had to straighten his shoulder himself. The room was full of doctors because this was something that happened so rarely that they could all learn something from it. His mother, Bob and Anne were asked to go to the waiting room, but Jegor wanted me to stay. ‘Okay’ I thought to myself ‘after that epilepsy I can handle anything’, and so I stayed for Yegor. He had to join his hands, raise his knee and pull his joined hands over his knee. It seemed to take ages to succeed. How painful it hurt him despite the pain medication. Really not fun to watch. And pop, his shoulder shot back. I can still see the joy in his eyes. The worst of the pain disappeared in a second. What a relief.

It was now half past six in the morning and Jegor was taken to the nursing ward. He was given anti-epileptic drugs there to prevent another attack and had to stay there for a few more hours. I was terrified to leave him there, but I had no choice. In addition, he was of course also in good hands. Jegor’s mother and Bob went home and I went to ours with Anne. When I got home I was devastated. Since it was already morning and the party would take place that day, I had to inform everyone before going to sleep that our party could not go ahead. When I was finally done with that, I couldn’t sleep a wink anymore. I had too much adrenaline.

At the end of the morning I received a call that I could come pick up Jegor again. ‘The night’, for what that even meant, had gone well and he had been discharged by the doctor. The weeks that followed were intense. Yegor and I both had a lot of fear. I went to the toilet with the door open so I could listen to what was happening and after a few days walking to the basement alone was the ‘scary’ step I/we made first. It took weeks, maybe even months, before we regained full confidence. The scariest of all for me was the nights. I normally sleep so deeply and this time I noticed Yegor’s attack, but what if it happened again and I didn’t notice? What if things turn out differently because I don’t notice? I didn’t sleep well the first few weeks. So did Jegor, who was very afraid of falling asleep or had a panic attack in the middle of the night. After all, the seizure had happened in his sleep. Fortunately, things have slowly returned to normal. Very slowly, I must say, but in the meantime we are happy there.

On that infamous Friday to Saturday night, Jegor and I naturally went to sleep with an unspoken irritation. What if that is the last thing you get to experience together? Fortunately for us this was not the last. Fortunately, we have had a very nice continuation of our life together. But it has been a lesson for us. We now say to each other every night ‘Sleep well, see you tomorrow, without worries, in good health’ and often in the morning we say ‘Good morning without worries’. Strangely enough, it provides a bit of peace and quiet. Jegor has also stopped drinking alcohol and we try to avoid stress as much as possible. Furthermore, we sometimes laugh about things that happened. That Yegor had forgotten my name, or how to spell his last name with confidence. And we are happy every day. Glad things have been going well since then and glad we have each other and in the meantime Lev. Life is too beautiful to give up. Try to enjoy every day you are given!