I am finishing the largest McDonald’s meal of my life, and I am not just eating — I am demolishing it. This raw honesty about my actions aims to evoke empathy and understanding from the audience, highlighting my vulnerability in this moment.

Boxes. Wrappers. Fries escaped like golden refugees. Three Big Macs. Three 10-piece McNugget sets. Three apple pies — because balance. Two Filet-O-Fishes I don’t even remember ordering, like a drunk text from my own subconscious. I am a hemorrhagic stroke survivor, a reminder of human vulnerability that fosters empathy and highlights how love and relationships can be a powerful motivation to survive. Food is supposed to be comfort. Tonight, food is a taunt. Salt kisses my tongue. Grease is laid thick in my throat like bribery. Artificial Sugar pulses through my arteries like a mantra: “You deserve this. You’ve earned this. You’re still alive.” This moment symbolizes the fragility of life and the preciousness of survival in a reflection for my audience. I do know that living through a stroke has made me so reckless that it is a dangerous as well as liberating experience to remember how fragile life is, as well as how strength can so easily be exemplified by dangerous behaviour. As for my relationship with my body, my approach is that it is sort of like a rental car that I never intend to return. I can enjoy as many majors. I wipe my mouth. I sigh: deep, satisfied, post-orgasm sigh. But then comes this unexpected shock: my chest misfiring, an interruption in the illusion of control I have never experienced. No pain. Not yet. An incorrectness. A glitch. Like my heart suddenly forgets what its job description is and goes, “What are we doing here again?” I laugh inside. Because of course I do. “Hey,” I say to nobody, because I am talking to my own organs, not my colleagues. “Don’t be dramatic.” This humour helps me cope, demonstrating to my audience that humour can be a vital tool in facing vulnerability. Then the second beat hits. And the third. And suddenly Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson — yes, that mountain of a man, the one built like a Norse god who eats boulders for protein — is inside my ribcage. He is not knocking. He is swinging a sledgehammer from the inside out of my heart. Each heartbeat is a sledgehammer with a full Olympic run-up, smashing outward from the inside, as if my heart is trying to escape my body and sue me for negligence. I am still sitting. Breathing. Thinking, “Well, this is a nuisance.” See, this is the thing that no one prepares you for when it comes to a near-death experience, when you’ve already survived 9: You don’t go crazy. You just sit back and evaluate your life like a bot evaluating a broken machine in a completely weird, chilling way. You don’t go nuts, amine. My stroke reminds me that our bodies often fool us with clinical ease, that our control is but an illusion, that our bodies are as likely to fool us as our minds. Your body can also fool you in the cold, and calculate the way a scientist observes data. Enemies Of A Good Name. Brain scientist, Jill Bolte Taylor, has written an entire book — “My Stroke of Insight” — about observing her own neurological collapse like a case study professionally, marvelling at the poetry of neurons dying in real time. I remember reading it and thinking: “Wow. How elegant. How intellectual.” This heart attack is not elegant. This is not intellectual. This is Thor playing whack-a-mole with my coronary arteries while McDonald’s congeals into regret. This is Thor beating my chest with his “Mjölnir” — the pain — as if it’s spreading through my entire body, but it isn’t exactly what the word “painful” can describe. But, more like “crushing,” like the wrath of a God I’ve disappointed. My left arm sides with the rebellion and turns numb and heavy. “Oh,” I say again, quieter this time. “Oh no.” I stand up from my seat. “Wahyu.” Bad idea. The room suffocates me. Gravity goes from essential to optional. My eyes raster into pixels like on a bad video file. All of my survival senses, honed from hospitals to IV stands to physio hell, snap to my consciousness. “This is not indigestion. This is not anxiety. This is not ‘walk-it-off’ simple. This is my heart filing a formal complaint. I have wished for anything but another stroke for years. “A heart attack seemed easy,” I thought. Quick, clean, lights out in an instant. An illusion that makes the reality of my stroke even more stark and profound. What a hilarious misunderstanding. This is nothing but easy. This is vengeful violence. With every heartbeat, there comes a drumroll announcement of its coming before it even happens. I feel the vibrations exploding through corridors where such fanfare ought not be. My ribcage is decidedly too small for the amount of existential screaming going on. I rest against the table, breathing heavily as follows: In. And Out. I am not afraid of death. And this directly affects my attitude towards being unafraid of pain, as well. Pain and I go way back – we even exchange Christmas cards. The thing that really scares me is timing. Because my mother is still alive. And no good child is allowed to leave before a parent. That is not a metaphor. That is a rule. My brain, the same one that spectacularly bled out all those years ago before rebooting out of sheer spite, starts to look for answers with a frenzied fervour. I Google: “Heart attack.” I Google: “Pulse.” My hands are shaking, but my mind is very sharp. I continue to search on my iPhone: “How can you stop a heart attack?” “Can I perform CPR on myself?” Is it too late? The irony is obscene: I am dying in real time while frantically searching for how not to, like a tutorial I skipped until the boss level. The pain swells. It does not spike — it blooms. Like a flower of agony unfurling its petals one by one, whispering to me, “This is it.” I think of the Canadian nurse who scolded me during my stroke while I screamed for morphine. I think of how shocked she looked, thinking how someone like me — seemingly controlled, articulate, “strong” — could lose my balls like that. This time, I do not scream. This time, I bargain. “Just end it,” I think. “Or stop.” I am certain — 100% certain — that I am about to die. There is a strange peace in certainty. I already have an obituary writing in progress in my head: I’m editing for tone and worrying about misinterpretation. I note” Speaker-Listener Negotiation: Contemporary Perspectives ‘The heart never discriminates.'” My heart is still hammering. My breath is shallow now. I am slick with sweat along my spine. And the smell of salt, fries, and death fills the room. And then, I think of my mother’s trembling hands. The way she prepares my meals is as if they are fragile. How she scolds me for skipping meals. How she still calls me by my childhood nickname that no longer fits my disabled body, but fits my soul. I cannot do this to her. I cannot do this to her. I cannot make her bury the child she studied for, fought for, and worried over into old age. Recognizing this deep love and resilience can inspire my audience to reflect on their own relationships and human strength. So I choose life — not because it’s beautiful, not because it’s kind — but because love is a leash I willingly wear. The act of choosing resilience is what I hope will encourage my audience to reflect and be inspired by humanity’s strength.

Choosing Life Amid the Pain

I slide down to the floor, chest searing, heart pounding. My dignity has long ago left. And, amidst the pain, the terror, the comedy, the grotesque poetry, there recurs a single thought: “I’m not sure I can trust myself ever again.” “If I get through this, no one will ever see me eat like this again,” I vow after using a lie. A sincere vow. All right. Because that’s what survival is: Not enlightenment. Not redemption. Yet another chance to compromise your body.