If you have had an extremely serious, even life-threatening, illness: what have you learned?

I know how obvious these things sound, but they were true for me.

Being around to raise your child and have them become a wonderful adult is a pearl beyond price.

The ability to have a reasonable life, even with permanent damage from medical stuff is a gift.

Surviving is a really big deal, even if lots of people do it.

All the clichés about appreciating things more are true, for a while anyway, then you get used to living again. You don’t necessarily take things for granted, but you do tend to relax.

You learn a lot about the people you love by how they react to your circumstance. And sometimes it’s heartbreaking.

And there are always a few that will tell you you did everything wrong, and you learn to laugh at that.

I haven’t thought about this stuff in a while, interesting to revisit.

ETA: Life threaten8ng kidney stuff in my early 20s and cancer in my early 40s.

Generally speaking, hospitals are nut houses, especially if you don’t have insurance.
For example: I had a very serious (MRSA) infection. Obviously, I was very upset. So some idiot at the hospital assumed that I was suicidal. (Which shouldn’t make sense to a sane person since I went to the hospital to save my life.) I had to jump through hoops, so to speak, with a county welfare worker to prove to her that I didn’t want to die.
I wanted to tell the doctor that I had plans to pay for my stay, and I would like for her to keep expenses as low as possible, but the bitch didn’t come back to see me for three days because, I suppose, I was considered indigent because I had no insurance.
What did I learn?? Stay away from hospitals if at all possible!!!

Like @kritiper I had MRSA on what was originally just a bad skin infection. If it had gotten worse (and thank goodness it didn’t), I could potentially have lost my right leg.

What did I learn?

1) Some doctors are wonderful – they do a great job of diagnosing and treating and staying with the patient.

2) Some doctors are schlocks and I wouldn’t go back to them on a bet.

3) Nurses seem to enjoy waking you at 4:00am to take your blood, even if you are asleep.

Surprisingly, even when facing a nasty potential outcome, I had great confidence I would be OK. I didn’t let myself think the worst, only how to improve things so bad stuff didn’t happen. Maybe i was fooling myself, maybe I was luck, but it all worked out.

I guess one other thing:

4) Following doctor’s orders for recovery and rehab – critically important and worth doing exactly what they said.

I had a bad accident.

I learned it’s very important to have an advocate and even then the nurses and doctors might not take you seriously or might be incompetent. They never cleaned my road rash I have dirt and asphalt sticking in my skin. They never sutured a deep cut near my elbow. They put a way too big leg brace on me.

They left me alone without the side rails up on my bed and we didn’t know then that I had extremely bad vertigo when I moved just a little bit. If I had adjusted myself just a little left or right I easily could have fallen and cracked my head open. Literally, when they tried to position me for an X-ray I started screaming, and I have never screamed, not even from the pain of the accident. That was when we learned I had vertigo from the accident. The X-ray tech had to hold me for the X-ray to be done.

I learned doctors call in all their doctor friend specialist that they can reasonably say should visit to rack up the bill.

I learned the aides usually are great. The nurses are hit or miss.

I only felt like I might die for a short time. I couldn’t breath well immediately after the accident because I had a tear in my lung. Luckily, the ambulance was on site. I did worry for a few months that my vertigo would never go away completely and that my knee was permanently damaged, and that my neck and shoulder would never be the same. I do have lasting problems, but luckily at least my knee healed completely, although I have a big scar on my right knee.

After the accident my view on life didn’t change much, because when I was younger I had been chronically in pain for many years and that had already changed my outlook. Basically, appreciating feeling well, and trying to be in the moment when I’m happy.

When my husband was hospitalized (he had emergency surgery) I learned nurses will try to punish you if they think you are annoying. My husband was having a bad reaction to a medication and they didn’t believe him and treated him like shit during that shift that we complained and made them address it.

Also, that medical mistakes happen all the time. My husband during that same hospitalization had an IV wide open that was supposed to drip so I buzzed the nurses, and by the time the nurse came it had quickly run straight into his vein at a crazy fast pace. I was too young at the time to do something to stop it. I would do something now.

Many times over a 6 year span when my aunt was hospitalized the interns and residents told us she was dying. So, that taught me not to always believe it.

Here a quick short list:
Your life can be upended in an instant. Even if the thing has been surreptitiously growing for years the diagnosis will slap you in the face.

Be kind to others. You have no idea what burdens they are silently carrying on their shoulders.

You will be thankful for those math and science classes you took in high school. Biology, chemistry, math all help make sense of your situation and your treatments.

Advances in medicine occur all the time. Those advances will be made by scientists, researchers, medical professionals and engineers. Look around you.

Clean up your stuff and get your papers in order.

Well I was 8 when I almost died from a ruptured appendix. So I did understand that the immense fever I had would not go down and I could tell by my parents faces that I may die. They didn’t say it but I knew it. I just remembered thinking I was going to miss them all. Siblings and parents. When I was in the hospital for a month afterward I remember missing everyone so badly. Even the fights over who gets to watch what show. So I guess you can say, I learned that nothing mattered to me as much as my family. But for an 8 year old that is pretty typical. But another scary even where I was suddenly sick and couldn’t breath taught me something else. I was laying in my bed weak from a sudden fever and I could not breathe. I saw my dad right outside my door and I remember thinking 2 things. One, not breathing hurts, and two, I was sorry, I couldn’t say goodbye and I prayed my dad wouldn’t be to sad or feel guilty because he was just a few feet away. I wanted to tell him its okay and not feel guilty. Because I knew he would. I prayed for him to always laugh and be happy because I loved him so much.
There was a third time when I felt my life in danger, but over all, it always came down to almost a guilt about dieing. I wasn’t to scared about the possibility of dying. I mean yes it scared me but what really scared me is not saying goodbye and thank you for sharing your life with me and dieing alone hurts.
So it taught me. Don’t let love ones die alone. Be there hold their hands and tell them its okay to let go and thank them for the years of love and sharing their life with you. It’s nice to know your life had value to someone dear.