Why Am I Still Here?

My name is Hassan and I am barely here.

I mean that.

I'm trying to currently understand WHY I am still here, because for about a year and a half now I have literally and figuratively had one foot in the grave.

In my lifetime, I  have (in no particular order)

Broken my left foot and a few bones in my hands

Ruptured my left Achilles tendon

Had my right knee rebuilt

Had 2 lumbar procedures

Slipped into a diabetic coma

Had 2 hernia repairs w/plastic surgery supported by pelvic mesh

More than 5 service-related and sports concussions

Been in a major car wreck with internal injuries/head trauma

Had 36 stitches to close  a head wound (my Mom threw an unwashed Pyrex bowl at me when I was a kid - she connected)

Had my nose broken in a fight

Cracked a front tooth down the middle in another fight

Fractured my skull and suffered a subdural hemotoma (brain swelling) and detached retina - workplace injury

My eyes imploded Dec 27, 2011 on I-65 driving thru Louisville

Have had 24 surgical procedures to have both eyes rebuilt, losing more than 75% of my vision, also losing the ability to distinguish day from night as well as eye alignment. Subsequent surgeries and implants have caused me to have cataract surgery in both eyes, glaucoma and diplopia (double vision)

Suffered a myocardial infarction (heart attack)

The past 18 months suffering from End Stage Renal Failure, I desperately need a kidney transplant to live.


All of these things... There have been times, especially in the last year or so where I knew I was out of here. Plenty of touch an go moments in the last 4 years where I wasn't expected to recover and last summer had to have the "death talk' with first my doctors, and then my Mom and Ex as to my final wishes and body disposal and care.

Expectations of life expectancy and the real and unreal possibilities of a transplant had been explained to me. I then researched it, accepted it and planned accordingly. I set things up financially leaving my Mother as the sole beneficiary, took a final traveling vacation to various cities and then started an independent, turnkey business as to contribute to a family trust so my parents, nieces and nephews could be cared for.

My siblings, God love then never completed setting up the family trust. I had to stop working at my new company last summer because my symptoms worsened, causing me to be hospitalized various times making me unable to go back to work.

Contact with my family began to wane. When I made the announcement of my kidney fagilure at the beginning of 2014, my family rallied around me and we had all of these grandiose plans to make sure I had support throughout my ordeal and that my death if it happened, would not be in vain. Hell, I wanted to take out a million dollar policy out on myself but only ended up taking $250k to give to my Mom because that's all I could afford. Not that I wanted to suffer or was looking to die, I just wanted to pay off their mortgage.

When I stopped working, I lost the additional income I needed to pay for new medication I still desperately need to survive.  I asked for help and initially got it, but then...

**crickets**

I won't go into detail, but I got faked out so bad that I almost died waiting for help that was said to be on the way.

I didn't bother to contact anyone because no one reached out to me and explained or apologized... This went on for weeks until

This past Tuesday morning, my voicemail is loaded with calls from my siblings and best friend.

My Mother had suddenly died.


All of that planning and action/inaction

All of the death scares I've encountered

Why is she gone and not I?


What is the reason that I'm still here?

Someone please explain this shit.