Memoir Excerpt

A few months back I took the time to mention that I was writing a memoir. At the time I outlined for my readers what I meant by that. See A letter to my readers.

Now I thought I would put up a small, and hopefully tantalizing excerpt. My chosen excerpt follows below.

Chapter 1: Nadja
Andre Breton (1928), the author of the surrealist book Nadja, asks himself and the world the first question we must all ask ourselves upon gaining self-awareness “Who am I?” I too open my book with this question.
I often find myself exploring the existentialist dilemma; “Why am I here, what is my purpose?” and “Does this life have any promise for us beyond our inevitable death?”
In spite of this general philosophical grounding, I find at times that despite these firm guiding questions and philosophy, that it is in times of crisis where I find prayers and spirituals spilling from lips that scarcely even fit my true philosophical underpinnings.
This seems especially true during the last 2 or 3 weeks of my life (written in May '08). I have been suffering from vomiting, fatigue and vertigo for an abnormally long time. On Monday, April 22nd, 2008 I was admitted to the ER because I was vomiting blood clots and experiencing retching, disorientation and double vision.
Fortunately the bleeding stopped after I vomited up all the blood clots in my system. My throat scope came back and I had a Mallory Weiss tear in my esophagus from all my violent puking but they said I could go once I kept food down. When the doctor learned that I was having double-vision he became concerned that I might have MS (Multiple Sclerosis).
That night I had an MRI. Unfortunately we got the results by 2:00 pm the next afternoon and the doctor told us I had a lesion in my cerebellum consistent with MS. So we went in for blood work and meds.
The next day we saw the neurologist and had a second discussion and looked at my MRI. There were only two lesions so he ordered another MRI.
So now, despite my life-view I find myself asking, “Why me?” I never thought this would happen to me. So I am mourning some of the life I had but I’m trying to start thinking about how to handle the changes in who I was and I am asking myself, “How will I move forward? What’s most important to me and how can I go on as an educator and continue contributing to society once I feel better?”
Here is some honest insight into how this feels for me right now. Whoever I am, whatever my purpose I’ll write my catharsis out and share it to help lift some of my pain and tears and to navigate my why towards the new person I am swiftly becoming.
So I return now to the question: “Who am I?”