Human beings live believing they are clever, but in moments of true crisis, what saves us is not the calculations in our heads, but the invisible defense mechanisms within our bodies. Looking back, I have two vivid, breathless memories of every cell in my body uniting with a single-minded determination—regardless of my own will—to say, “We must save this person.”
1. The Moment the Brain’s Fuse Blew: Extreme Stress and the Emergency Brake
The first incident occurred decades ago, during a period when I was under immense stress from my corporate life.
I experienced something strange on my way home from work. My mind felt perfectly clear, but suddenly, my thoughts came to a dead halt. The familiar street right in front of my house became completely unrecognizable. Even looking at the navigation didn’t help; I felt trapped in a distant maze. Unable to find my way home, I called my wife and described the surrounding buildings. Only after she came to find me and put me in the passenger seat was I able to return home.
Later, an Asian medicine practitioner explained to me that “the brain temporarily cuts off neural pathways to protect vital organs or blood vessels from extreme stress.” Even if this was not a precise medical diagnosis, it was the moment I realized that severe stress could cause temporary disruptions in memory and spatial awareness. To me, it felt as though my brain, unable to handle the overload, had temporarily tripped its own circuit breaker.
When extreme stress overloaded my brain, did it declare a state of emergency and briefly turn off the power switch to the areas responsible for reason and memory? Was it applying a forced emergency brake on my body, saying, “Now is not the time to find your way. You must stop first”?
Of course, I cannot know exactly what happened inside my brain that day. But looking back at that dizzying moment when I suddenly lost my way on a road I traveled every day, I realize it was a desperate emergency signal sent by my body warning that it could no longer endure. I wanted to accept it as the moment my brain flipped its own fuse to save me. Thanks to that internal breaker and my wife who came running from the outside, I pulled through my first crisis.
2. The Abdominal Officer, Omentum: The Crisis in Vietnam and the Body’s Defense Mechanism
The second incident happened years later, on a road in Vietnam.
Not realizing my appendix had ruptured, I stubbornly insisted on going to the airport, saying I would get treated after returning to Korea. Thanks to a bold U-turn by my partner, Trung, I barely made it to the hospital. After surgery, the doctor told me something chilling: the ruptured area had been miraculously sealed by surrounding tissue, preventing it from turning into peritonitis. He warned that if I had been even a little late or boarded the plane, the internal cabin pressure could have been fatal.
Related Post: The U-Turn That Saved My Life in Vietnam
I learned later that the identity of the surrounding tissue that blocked the rupture was a fatty tissue known in the medical community as the “policeman of the abdomen”—the Omentum.
When inflammation occurs or an organ ruptures somewhere in the abdomen, this tissue glides over to the affected area and wraps around the hole like a shield to block it. While I was sweating cold in the car and stubbornly demanding to go to the airport, these invisible officers inside my belly were throwing themselves into holding back the dam before the infection could spread.
3. Body from Within, People from Without: Gratitude Learned Through Surviving Life’s Crises
The message I read from both incidents was the same. It was a powerful message my body sent to me, independent of my own conscious will: “We must save this person at all costs.”
In my younger years, the breaker in my brain forced me to a halt. As time passed, in Vietnam, the omentum inside my belly fought with a shield in hand. And right on cue, the precious connections in my life—my wife and Trung—reached out their hands from the outside. The body from within, and people from without. It was a precious life preserved by a joint effort of the entire universe, inside and out.
This bonus time, earned so tenaciously by my cells, may not belong entirely to me alone. It is a time owed equally to my body that held on from the inside, and to the people who never let go from the outside. I pledge to cherish each day they worked so hard to protect, holding it close and never letting it slip away in vain.