* * *  update #20 – 3rd infection of my Defibrillator’s scar…☹  * * *

Bonjour my Dearest FRIENDS ❤

Since so many of you seem, so caringly, to enjoy reading about my little journey of these past few months (post “ heart attack + 5 surgeries in a row ”) … I thought that I would share with you today a new little update…

On the positive side, my arms and hands are feeling better following my neck SPINAL FUSION (my spinal fusion surgery was my 4th surgery (out of a total of 5 – and I should REALLY get some kind of discount, or at least a smiley face stickers? 😉 for doing so many surgeries in a row don’t you think?! 😉 Seriously!!! (ps: I am now officially trying to talk like my children!  😉 … if you also have a teen or young adult child, you will know exactly what I mean! 😉)  anyways… that spinal fusion surgery had to be done in an emergency as I suddenly, and totally unexpectedly, lost in a matter of a few hours most of the function of my right arm due to a major cervical spine herniation… and that surgery was particularly dangerous due to very high risks of bleeding on the table due to all my meds for the heart attack… and I had 1 chance in 50 or so of dying from it… which is actually not “that big” of a number when you are thinking… “death”! 🙄 ) … but on the good news side, the 3 inches scar on my throat from that surgery is healing wonderfully… which I am SO deeply grateful for! 😊
I still occasionally hurt to swallow and my voice is still off at times (2 side effects due to that surgery) but hopefully all this will heal with time… ( and for those of you who know me personally you can easily imagine how much fun I have had for the past many weeks with using the line “it hurts to swallow!” when asked “how are you feeling?… ” and when talking to friends and strangers alike! lol – bringing gentle (or very “French” 😉 humor to our days, especially when they are filled with physical and emotional pain, is always a good and great thing ❤).

Humor aside, on the “less positive” side, I still can not feel anything at all all around the scar (like if a dentist’s numbing shot had taken over in a permanent way the entire left side of my throat), which makes it very challenging to shave (if you see me around looking like a little “french terrorist” 😉 …or bank robber… or advertisement for Gillette razors lol … please know that it is simply that shaving has become such a major challenge that I only do it every few days… and as due to the numbness issue, I am pretty scared to shave on that scar and risking ending up cutting myself in the process and as I would not feel at all the blade going into my skin until… it would start bleeding profusely (which could in turn become a major issue as due to all my heart and blood thinning meds as I am now at high risk of bleeding profusely, and dangerously, with any kind of cut or injury)… but I yet took a leap of faith and shaved for the very first time yesterday ! 😃 (which, on top of the bleeding risks, is an incredibly challenging endeavor now as my right arm can not hold the razor!… all while my left arm is still in a lot of pain!… so… it took a good 1/2 hour and lotsssss of struggles to get it done! – so, as personal little announcement 😊😉 and just in case that it is “fun” for you to… shave men in general?… or shave one man in particular 😉 (I know from experience that for some Women it really indeed is fun for them to do so 😊 ) … AND if you live next to Woodcroft in Durham (where I live) … AND if you are not afraid of big scars… then feel free to contact me to schedule a little shaving session 😊😉 why not?…
Oh! and I almost forgot… AND I would also need to… be able to trust you with holding a sharp object right on my throat !? 😉 ) … anyways, humor aside, at least that one scar is looking good and healing well, which I am SO deeply grateful for!!! ❤

On the “less happy” side 😰🤒😷, the scar that is the entry into my pec’s muscles where the surgeon created a “pocket” (as he cutely likes to call it 😊) to insert the ICD / DEFIBRILLATOR (surgery #5) a few weeks ago got… guess what!?…  infected once again!!!… yap! … and this is now the 3rd time! … and everytime that it got infected they had to cut some of it open to try to see what is creating the infection, and remove sutures that do not seem to want to dissolve on their own, and clean it all up etc… so my surgeon scheduled an urgent appointment yesterday for me and so that he could, once again and for the 3rd time, play with it and cut it open and try to help the best he can…

On a funny side note, as my surgeon was very concerned about it (and I got even more scared and deeply worried when he expressed his own concerns and as I AM the one being on the sensitive end of his scalpel! lol … not the one holding it on the safe end right!? ) so he texted me back and forth yesterday, very caringly (and by the way he is a GREAT and SUPER SWEET and SUPER CARING surgeon! his name is Dr. GEHI at UNC, just in case that you ever need a great and kind heart/ICD surgeon?) and he said to me ” Could you come at 7.30 on Monday at the hospital?… ” which made me right away make a very weird face reading his message (not because of the hospital part… but because of the… figures/time he used! lol) and so I replied to him right away ” may I ask if you mean 7.30 am?… or 7.30pm?… ” as, being kind of an alleged artist and a definite night owl… 7.30 AM is much closer to my bedtime… than my wake up one! 😉
So we settled for a late morning appointment and I was much happier about that 😊

And so there I went to get some of the scar open once again 😰🤒😷… and once again, guess what!?… it did hurt like hell ! (with no numbing at all every time) but guess what! since I am good at faking 😉 … I faked very well… and totally looked like I was not hurting at all while he was slicing it open once again!

So I am now once again on strong antibiotics for the 3rd time, hoping that I will be so lucky that it will help and maybe clear once and for all that infection and allow me to move one…

Now IF the infection does not resolve and does end up spreading out inside, this could then all end up being very depressing news as it would mean that they now would need to actually first REVERSE that whole surgery (which would mean for little me, surgery #6 ! ) to remove the whole ICD defibrillator device… then try to clean all the bacteria’s and infections inside the “pocket” (the size of a small deck of cards) that they have already cut through my chest’s muscles and tissues… then let me heal… then later, once all is healed and infection free inside….  redo that whole surgery all over again !!! 😥 ( and that would now be surgery #7 ! ) … all with the very same amount of pain than the original (and for those of you who have read my previous updates and sharings, you will remember that I mentioned how this surgery was, by far, the most painful surgery recovery that I ever went through in my life!!! – the pain that I indeed endured for the week after the surgery was pretty much taking me to tears every single instant! 😥 … even with 2 Percocets in my system every 6 hours!!!  For some reasons it was just HORRIBLY painful, and even though I am so used in general to handling a lot of physical pain as I do pretty much every day of my life from very any health issues and body struggles…).  The pain for that surgery was so much worse than my “vasectomy from hell” (I did a vasectomy years ago that ended up creating constant daily horrible pain for over a year!) … or my “let’s slice up Pascal’s entire face and play Lego with him!” which was a full facial surgery that I went through around age 20 and where they totally sliced both of my entire jaws/mouth… my chin etc…  and put me back together with 26 titanium screws and plates all over the face… which I still have to this day…

So needless to say I am NOT looking forward to redoing that surgery… 2 more times if things go bad… but… destiny solely will decide… as it always does 😉  and I will very humbly hope that, for once, destiny will be a little kind to me?…  and give me a tiny break from all those endless struggles… and give me at least a few days or a few weeks of serenity and less pain…

On the very positive side, from a spiritual, emotional and intellectual standpoint, I still feel, every single day, every single moment, every single place that I go to that I am living on “borrowed” time… that I am living on some kind of “ extra super lucky ” kind of time… that I am living with the omnipresent feeling that it solely due to nothing short of PURE and IMMENSE LUCK… that I am living this very moment!

In an ideal world where we would all be very wise and constantly grateful💓, ALL OF US should of course be living that very reasoning… and we would do so whether we had died 3 months ago, as I did… or you had never died before.  For let’s never indeed for an instant forget that the fact that we do not get hit in the next instant by a massive heart attack… or a stroke… or a car… or slip in our shower and break our neck on the door frame… or get killed by a blood clot… or any of the THOUSANDS of things that can suddenly and brutally end our lives… or suddenly simply “malfunction” from how so infinitely complex, and fragile, our physiological bodies truly are… is all of course nothing short of PURE LUCK and TOTAL RANDOMNESS!!!💓💓💓 … nothing else…

I will try one day to write a more detailed post about this very subject, and as so many of you have sent me very many questions in the spirit of “ What was it like to actually die?… (for 8 minutes in my case😍) “ – “ How did you feel right before it happened?… “ – “ How did you feel right after it happened?… “ – “ What could you have done differently and to avoid your massive heart attack?… “ etc.

… and in the meantime, PLEASE be so kind as to remind yourself of one of many of all the core principles available to our minds, spirit and souls such as (I will one day if you like list in a post all those such principles that I crated for my own journey – if you are interested in my doing so please send me a message on Facebook to let me know?) one from from the many Inspiration Quotes that I write and share with my followers and in my modest book (and which are simply my own journey and experience and learnings…) )
I will share with you today one of the very many which are absolutely critical to my own journey and vital to my endless gratefulness and sense of wonderment for everything and all things… especially from, and in, the smallest of moments, happenings and times 💓

One of such core principles of my own journey and thinking is the peaceful and full acceptance, in each and every moment, that yes ” LIFE is endlessly “unfair”! “ … and it is such in so very many ways… and complaining about it or trying to fight it or being bitter will never achieve anything of any value to you… and will do NOTHING but waste some of your living time… which you will never ever get to live again 🙂 … so please do your very best at just deeply, and truly, ACCEPTING that very many painful things WILL indeed happen to your days and journey, and to mine, and that there is not a single positive value to receive from judging them as “unfair” … Things and events just simply “happen” (kind of like, as one of so many examples that I could mention from my own journey, when, on top of recovering from my massive heart attack and 3 heart surgeries I suddenly, inexplicably, started to totally loose within a few hours the use of my right arm and hand… When referring to that major bout of “bad luck”, even the surgeons, who are not known in general for their endless compassion or emotional bonding with their patients ! lol … were telling me ” You are really so unlucky!!! ” which was their way to say… yes life is very “unfair” oftentimes… and you just received a major share of that, and focusing on that unfairness is a total waste of my limited number of hours and days to live… focusing on “What can I do about it?… How can I build “acceptance” for it?” …” , ” What else in my body s working great or decently? ” etc. is all such a wiser use of my life, time, and thoughts and emotions…

Life IS indeed unfair, and sometimes even VERY unfair… but it is nothing to be upset about, or fight, or get angry or bitter about… since it is part of the very nature of life… just like the skies are blue… the oceans are deep… the birds can fly… and the sun is beautifully warm and beautiful…
The earlier you truly and fully accept life’s unfair very nature … and most importantly choose to ignore it with serenity and never ever fight it”… the happier and the better your life will truly be! <3

I thought that I would share here with you a couple of the very many Inspirational Quotes that I write for my own journey (and share with all my followers to modestly help them in theirs) and which have some relevance to this present concept and subject:

“  We are all equal in the face of the unfairness of suffering.
We are all, anything but equal… with everything else.  “ – pascal monmoine

“ The ” Why?… ” truly never matters! ” – pascal monmoine

”  Bad things happen to good people all the time… and good things happen to bad people all the time… both always being such a gift to our lives, from their most beautiful opportunities for evolving of self.  “

 – pascal monmoine

So please really do your very best to never worry for an instant about life’s “unfairness”, and whatever destiny might be throwing at you in the form of struggles or emotional or physical pain… and instead always do your best to refocus your thoughts and your heart, on the endless sources of gratefulness which are still yours to cherish, in each and every day… in each and every moment…
Doing so will fill up your heart and soul with love 💓 and beauties 💓 … instead of resentment and bitterness.
It is such a wiser and better way to live your heart… to live your life… at least I think so…

I truly hope that these few modest words maybe will help you on your own journey… they have helped me so many times on mine…

Until my next update… I am sending much MUCH love to YOU 💓💓💓 as well as to all the people who live in your heart 💓💓💓

pascal

( … and in case that you would be interested in getting a copy of my modest book that offers
very many of my most popular Inspirational Quotes (and over 50 of my fine art Photographs)
you can find it on Amazon or by clicking here)

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