Straight from the pen: Jeroen

Very coincidental!

I've had a bizarre and exhausting week. And that had not so much to do with the '40 days no drop' participation. Or is it..?!

In my introduction as an IkPas blogger, I told you about an acquaintance who fell into a coma after a cardiac arrest. And in the introduction I quoted a good friend of mine, with his winged statement 'tear that lace'. The moment the newsletter with this story appeared, we received a message in our friend group app: that friend in question had suffered a heart attack the previous evening, followed by cardiac arrest! He was resuscitated en route to the hospital, angioplasty once there and later put to sleep. Exactly as it went with the other person I mentioned in my story!

When I showed this to another comrade, he immediately said: “From now on, don't talk about someone we know, Jeroen”. Hey, I hope I don't say anything about this person now, well I just called him sort of…

We have been very tense all weekend. Finally, his wife was able to inform us that he had now awakened from the coma and would be moved to the cardiac care unit later in the day. He made it up to the circumstances, even smiled a bit. A great relief, you will understand! Normally I would have had a drink on that. Also to ease the tensions. But now I had to process it in other ways. I didn't really get around to doing sports. Now I had drawn a comic strip with my own characters Sim&Pol.

Those are the situations in which your need for alcohol increases. But also the realization of how vulnerable you actually are and that your health is never something for granted.

We are of course very happy that things are going in the right direction for him, but this incident has not done us much good either. Like I said, it's been an exhausting week. Between the sleepless nights, we are in the middle of preparing for a big concert with our percussion group. Tuesday was the dress rehearsal, Wednesday stage was built, Thursday all the instruments were transported and set up; Friday performance! It is always very pleasant afterwards. Chat with each other and with the visitors. There is usually a lot of drinking this evening. For fun but also there is the discharge; again: let me drink the tensions off me.

How I did after such a busy, bizarre and tense week, I will let you know in the next blog.

Have a good and healthy weekend! Take good care of yourself.

Sincerely,
Jeroen