I wrote here not so long ago about another AVM web site that I was once a member of, which no longer exists and the
lady who once ran it that I dealt with online. Before
that person we had another leader for many years who
I believe originated the website. I will call him R.A. here. He was also an AVM survivor and he did a wonderful job of helping the other survivors.
It was within a few months of my AVM bleed and operation,
and I had no idea of how long I would survive and I knew
that it was very possible that I would not survive that
first year. I was so very weak and so very tired and my
short term memory also so weak. I joked on the website
when reporting a minor success that perhaps I was wrong
and I would live another thirty years! My parents were
still around then, and they were thirty years older than
I was and maybe I would make it there also. I didn't know
and I was making a joke. Then R.A. wrote back online that
I would not live another thirty years. He had the same thing that I had and he knew a lot more and I didn't argue
with him. He was very probably right! It was just a few
weeks later that we got the news that R.A. had died
from his own AVM complications.
We were all sorry for him, especially because of what
he had tried to do to help other survivors. He was
the best just like you all are here. And so I saw
that he knew what he was saying about my surviving also.
But I heard from another survivor also, a man who had
survived already 25 years, and he told me that no one
knew about that...how long one will survive. It is up
to God, not us. Anything is possible.
He was right. 100% right. I know that now.
And besides, it is not so important how many days we
live but what we do with the time we have in the condition
that we find ourselves.