When you're deathly ill, particularly for a lengthy period, you detach from "reality" -- the world others live in. You realize how foolish people are to treat life with casual nonchalance.
For you, being in that state means every moment is a struggle. Every day an ordeal. Crawling over hot coals you suffer searing pain and emotional horror, sometimes at unbearable intensity. You consider, of course, ways to end the ordeal. How can you not?
It's futile to describe this. It's like trying to explain war to civilians: they don't have concepts to grasp the experience. They imagine a cellar of sadness, not realizing beneath that room is a dreadful dungeon of despair.
If you're lucky enough to survive serious illness and possible (or, as in my case, reversible) death, you find yourself changed. Your attitude shifts. Radically. You become grateful for every fuckin' day of sunshine life offers you. These are not just words, you've seen the alternative up close and personal. You know what can happen when a nightmare becomes real.
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