Bitcoin is Life TOKENS Magazine - April 22 Issue
When I remember, I check the bitcoin chart to mark living
events in my day. Bitcoin is the only measure I have of
real life on planet earth, with real certainty.
It takes hours for my mind to assimilate with my
surroundings. When I awake I peer deep into the dim
trying to decipher what phase of my existence I'm
experiencing.
Usually, I check my cellular phone, but it doesn’t mean
anything. I wonder what day it is. I wonder if the time is
right, I’m often wrong. What I see on the screen with my
eyes is not what my brain sees in my head.
It's not that I'm disoriented or confused, I just never know
which plane I'm on, time becomes irrelevant. There's
probably a medical explanation somewhere. The best I
got out of the doctors is lowered cognitive ability, at
best mild dementia. But it’s more than forgetfulness. It is
more like I’m missing a chunk of time from life,
specifically 11 days or so.
My brain is then operating as though my life never did
stop, for a bit. This condition is a lingering effect from a
February 2021 traumatic event.
Bitcoin is LIFE
/ B Y C H A R L E N E B R O W N
…I heard my name. And again. "Do you know where
you are?" This echoed through my veins with a
sharp stinging in my ears. Lights beat down
blinding my eyes. My throat. Pain rang increasingly
through every muscle with every draw of breath.
…I heard my name. And again. "Do you know where
you are?" This echoed through my veins with a
sharp stinging in my ears. Lights beat down
blinding my eyes. My throat. Pain rang increasingly
through every muscle with every draw of breath.
My name again. A number of medics surrounded me. Why? They
seemed happy to see me. More scrubs rushed around. My nose.
Something was not right. "Charlene. Charlene. Do you know
where you are?"
Searching for sounds, all I found was something to choke on. Was
I dead? Where was I? Where was my son? What was happening?
That's when I knew for sure I didn't know anything for sure.
Perhaps dreaming.
What happened? Stress.
Emotional trauma and mental stress at work had boiled over to
the point where my entire endocrine system shut down and threw
me into a coma. They charted me for type one diabetic coma.
All my organs failed, except for my heart and lungs. Days four and five
grew so gruesome, blood transfusion was my only cling on to life. I should
not be alive, but I didn't know that I was alive. It all seemed surreal.
Eleven days elapsed and I was transferred from intensive care to general
admission.
The hospital released me in a state of half-life. My doctor notated by
discharge papers stating that he wasn't convinced of diabetes, rather,
there was some kind of neurological effect with a combination of ten
other possible conditions.
I wish I could write the whole story, but I don't know the whole story.
I can only piece together bits and pieces. It is merely a blur.
The day I got out of the hospital I saw my baby. Instantly, I felt live flood
back into my veins. He was being fostered at a neighbor's.
The powers that be wouldn't let me take him home and kept him from my
bosom for two months too long. The pain of our separation scored much
sorer than the fierceness of the coma itself.
Convalescing at home those first days out of the loony bin, I sought
for relevance. The only thing I found to rely on bitcoin. Not for
the price or the market value. I rely on Bitcoin to know whether
I am dead or alive. Unlike a clock that repeats its cycle every
12 hours on analog or 24 hours digitally, bitcoin has no cycle.
Some use the bitcoin chart for pricing and panicking, I use the
bitcoin chart as a reference on life. Bitcoin is my stethoscope,
my heartbeat. Hallucinations still blur my sense of reality
today (no psychedelics).
Fourteen months later, I really don't know much of what happened.
However, the never-slumbering bitcoin chart lets me know I am alive.
As long as bitcoin's ticker keeps ticking, I know I'm alive and kicking.
Many friends, mostly strangers, played a role in my continuing
recovery. As I searched for an escape from the night’s grip on my
life, there was one voice, not loud, not harsh, in a still and somewhat
fragile tone came the anthem “and we are live.”
Ben Semchee, host of his name sake the Bitcoin Ben show, was that
voice. I had heard him a few times prior to my coma, and honestly,
the noises around me and in my head made it even impossible to
watch any form of entertainment, no music, not movies, not even
worship.
I was anxious for something that would not
increase my already rooftop level anxiety.
Each day, when I remembered, I listened to
Bitcoin Ben.
Soon I realized his show was in the mornings.
I joined his Patreon group. The daily
notifications of Ben’s shows started to bring
some sense of time relevance back into
being.
Ben inspired me to start this
UtahBitcoinSummit.com. That led me back to
Utah Valley University, where I launched my
career as a journalist in 2005. I’ve come full
circle to be working (volunteering) at UVU as
the adjunct professor of bitcoin and
blockchain.
“And We Are Live” became such a pillar to my
slumberless nights and mornings. I’m stronger
now that I hardly have time to listen to Ben’s
shows. When I do, my cup runs over with joy
that I heard this guy. Seriously, I attribute
almost everything I’ve done these last 14
months in the crypto space to Bitcoin Ben
and the timeless bitcoin chart.
ART /by Neel Kashi
