What I Learned From a Week in the Hospital

Eventually Something Gets You. But a Lot of Other Stuff Happens Too.

Four years ago, I checked into the hospital because I couldn’t breathe. When I was admitted, they told me they were testing for four possibilities: heart attack, lung cancer, AIDS, and pneumonia.

I said, “I sure hope it’s pneumonia.”

What I didn’t say was that I’d put off going for months. My cough had been getting worse—slowly, steadily—but I was too afraid of what I might find out. By the time I finally asked for help, I was scared I was going to die. I could feel it building in my chest.

I spent five days in the hospital with a chest tube between my ribs, draining fluid into a pump—about a Gatorade bottle’s worth by the end. Nearly every moment of the Winter Olympics was playing on the TV in my room. I watched skaters spin and skiers fly while fluid drained from my chest in slow, steady rhythm. It felt surreal—like the world was still turning, impossibly beautiful, impossibly fast, even while mine had paused.

And in that strange pause, I started to understand something that’s taken years to put into words.

That moment—those five days—scared me more than anything I’d ever lived through. But I see them now as a blessing. Because they taught me how to keep living when I don’t know what’s coming next.

And that, more than anything, is what getting older feels like.

It doesn’t feel like clarity, or collapse. It feels like less of the breathless “anything could happen!” excitement of your twenties—and also less of the terrified “anything could happen any moment!” fear that haunts you at the same time.

Even though both are still just as true as they ever were.

Getting older is about recognizing that very good or very bad things can happen at any time—but not very often. And when they do, you’ll deal with them the best you can. Because by now, you’ve already had to.

I still remember the tube in my ribs, the glow of the television, the sound of skates on ice and snow crunching under skis. I remember my dull fear and the building pain. I remember people who treated me exactly how I’d feared that they would treat a trans person in the days I’d spent delaying asking for help. But I also remember laughing with friends who came to gossip. I remember little crushes on nurses. I remember feeling curious, bored, alive. I remember, even then, being me.

Eventually, they figured it out. I was napping when the surgeon came in alone to tell me they’d canceled the surgery to open up my lungs. I’d be going home that evening, she said. I was so surprised I thought I’d dreamed her. I asked the nurse later if it was real.

It was.

And I’ve carried that experience with me ever since—not in a tragic way, but in a clear-eyed way. It reminded me that life is never all one thing. That even in the scariest moments, the smallest joys can still slip in.

Because the truth is: eventually something will get you.
But a lot of other stuff happens too.

Beautiful, boring, soft, silly stuff.
Routines that bring comfort. Moments that bring awe.
Songs that hit just right. Outfits that change your mood.
People who surprise you. Conversations that stay with you.
Little acts of courage. Quiet pockets of peace.

All of it feels like something.
And through all of it, you still get to be you.

Life is full of moments we are scared to face, situations that rob us of control, settings that strip away the comforts we cling to in the face of uncertainty.
All we can really control is the person we are when we face them.

And I think that’s enough.