The End of Another Year

2025 held some dramatic health crises.

Patch had another surgery for a shattered femur. My mom had a stroke and got a pacemaker. In the fall, Patch was told he needed a stent—and then, when he went into surgery, happily, he didn’t. A growth in his colon turned out to be benign.

And then, in February, while hiking on a remote island in New Zealand, I was stung by an insect—likely a wasp. Three years before, while riding my bike with friends, I had a reaction to a wasp that landed me in the hospital. Although anaphylaxis was not confirmed at the time, the emergency doctor suggested I might want to consider carrying an EpiPen, “just in case.” I bought an EpiPen, just in case.

On this day, I was only walking for a few hours with my brother and sister-in-law. As I was walking out the door, my husband insisted I take my EpiPen. I went back into the cabin, grabbed the pen, and stuffed it into my fanny pack along with my phone.

The trail on Stuart Island was beautiful and was the start of a three-day hike known as “The…” The first few kilometers of the trail wound through the trees on an embankment that hugged the Pacific Ocean on one side and a tree forest on the other. After an hour or so, we decided to head back to the car, where we knew Patch was waiting. Patch was still recovering from a shattered femur and a hip injury that had happened while skiing two years before. He couldn’t walk too far and needed walking poles to support himself.

My brother-in-law, Jerry, walked slightly ahead and ducked underneath a fallen tree. As I leaned down to avoid the tree, I felt a tiny sting underneath my tank top. I looked up at my sister Sue and Jerry and said, “I think I’ve been stung by a bee.” Jerry looked horrified, and Sue asked me what to do. I thought I might be okay and that we should keep walking.

In less than a minute, I had to sit down on the trail and got the EpiPen out of the pack. After a failed attempt—where, in our haste, we forgot to flick the blue top off the pen—Jerry thrust the orange side of the EpiPen into my left thigh. I don’t remember feeling the pen because I lost consciousness.

Twenty minutes later, I regained consciousness. Nauseous and shaking from the epinephrine, I told my sister Sue and my brother Jerry that I was going to have a second reaction. I don’t know why I believed this, but I knew—I just knew—I was going to react again. Sue ran ahead to try to find cell service, and Jerry and I tried to walk to the trailhead to get help.

It took ages to even walk 100 metres, and as an hour turned into two, not making it off the trail seemed increasingly possible. After an hour of walking a few feet and then resting, I sat down on the trail and stared for a long while at a beautiful blanket of moss hugging the roots of a nearby tree. It occurred to me that I was dying. I said to myself, “Wow, this is unexpected… I didn’t think I would die this way.”

A calm came over me. Quite suddenly, I was overcome with an intense and beautiful energy. I felt so grateful. It’s been a great life. It’s been so much fun. I didn’t feel afraid, and I didn’t feel sad. It was as if I was looking at my life as one large canvas, and it was beautiful. I could feel myself relaxing into this loving embrace of love and light.

And then I jolted myself back. I want to live. I have to get out of here. I need to see my kids again. I need to be with Patch again.

While I was collapsed, a lot was happening. Sue had reached emergency services, and a rescue helicopter was on its way. It would take 80 minutes—it had already been two hours. A nurse working in the small island clinic had heard the news that someone on the trail was in anaphylactic shock, and she grabbed medical supplies and jumped into a Zodiac with other volunteers.

Two and a half hours after my first sting, an emergency crew of volunteers popped out of the bushes, shoes dirty, leaves and sticks in their hair. They had climbed up an embankment to reach me on the trail. Twenty minutes after they arrived, I experienced a second anaphylactic reaction while the crew was helping me down the steps to the beach. This reaction would have killed me had the nurse and volunteers not been there with epinephrine and steroids. They loaded me onto the rescue helicopter and took me to the nearest hospital.

So, it’s been an eventful year—and I am so grateful. Grateful that those nurses, firemen, and police officers left their lives for a few hours on a Saturday morning to respond to an urgent rescue call. I am grateful for whatever spiritual force kept me alive long enough to be rescued. Most of all, I am grateful for my life.

I have been given extra time to experience life—to hug my kids, to tell my husband how much I love him. I am noticing the light in the evening sky and how it turns the mountains into black cut-out silhouettes. If the sun is shining and the grass is dry, I lie down on the grass with the dogs a little longer. Watching them run in circles of delight makes me so happy. I read a little longer each morning, and I go to bed each night listing the many things I am grateful for.

I know that life ends, and I think I have a pretty good idea of what that end might feel like.

Until that time comes, I am going to keep living fully. I am going to use my meditation skills, breathwork, and yoga to keep teaching me to be present in this life—out of my head and into whatever experience is presenting itself right now. Life is beautiful, all of it. I am so grateful to have been given more time.

Welcome, 2026. I am so glad to see this year.

I have felt that 2025 has been a landmark year, in a totally unexpected way.