Near-Life Experience

Katie R. Yen is a novelist and poet whose work celebrates hope amid vulnerability. After a life‑changing health crisis, she committed to writing stories that heal.

You’ve likely heard of near-death experiences, but what about a near-life experience? A sudden change in my health made me reevaluate my priorities, and fully invest in writing fearlessly.

My stomach had been feeling funny since Sunday night, but I decided to ignore it. I had better things to do, and hoped that strange fluttering feeling would go away all on its own. I kept working through the week, but by Thursday afternoon, my insides roiled and I was seized by a cold sweat. Still, I stayed glued to my laptop as I worked from home. The sound of my skull connecting with the floor alerted my husband, who found me passed out in the hallway. Soon, the E.R. doctors were poking me here and there, trying to figure out why my skin was pale and blood pressure was low. 

“Does it hurt here?” they asked, pressing on my appendix. I was in so much anguish that a diagnosis of appendicitis would have been a relief. But I felt no pain there. “Order an ultrasound.”

“I think I found something,” the technician said as I writhed in pain, the instrument probing my insides. She directed my attention to the monitor, the screen filled with darkness. “Those dark splotches are blood,” she explained. It was sloshing around my abdominal cavity instead of flowing through my veins.

“Before we take you into surgery, are you pregnant?” A standard question, but one I didn’t know the answer to. We had been trying. I had hoped I was. But now—I hoped I wasn’t.

“Your test came back positive.” What should have been a joy-filled moment was instead filled with anxiety and helplessness. 

​What happened? Without warning, I had sprung a leak: a bubble had formed on my ovary, popping like a zit and leaking blood into my abdomen over the course of several days. By the time I was wheeled into the O.R., I had lost about 70% of my blood—and possibly, my unborn baby.

As I waited for help, I closed my eyes, and prayed. Too weak to form words, I formed a picture in my mind: a felled tree as tall as a California redwood, floating on a steel-gray sea, with no sign of horizon in any direction. Although the log was lost at sea, the waves were calm, and there was no storm. I, the cut tree, could only lie there, floating, trusting; with nothing but ocean in all directions, the only place to look to was up. Up to God.

​Days of uncertainty passed as I healed. Against both odds and expectation of medical professionals, my baby continued to grow. He bounced around in my womb, in fact, flipping into breech position as if to say, “I won’t be told what to do!”

After my gorgeous boy arrived, my priorities shifted. Yours might, too, if you had a near-death experience, and a near-life experience, all at the same time. I stepped down from my job in corporate communications to care for my darling, and in between naptime and playtime I began to write.

That’s not entirely true – I’ve always been a writer. Only, before, I was too afraid to share my work, too worried to put in the time until time nearly escaped me. Now, what do I have to be afraid of?

Is there anything you’ve always wanted to try, but been too afraid to do? Make a list of what’s holding you back, then tear it into confetti. Don’t wait, my friend. After you’ve made progress, come back and tell me all about it. I mean it.

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