Life at a 9: When Everything Stops and Perspective Begins
By: Maurie Beasley, M.Ed.
We all know that sometimes life throws unexpected challenges our way, but sometimes,
it completely blindsides you, leaving you no time to react. I learned that the hard way.
It started with a routine operation—nothing major, nothing life-altering. I walked in,
followed the standard pre-op instructions, and assumed I’d be back to my “normal” self
in no time. And for about two weeks, that seemed to be the case. I went about my days,
brushing off the lingering fatigue, dismissing the nagging feeling that something wasn’t
quite right. After all, it was just a simple procedure, and I had a restaurant to run,
employees depending on me, a husband, and three young children. Nothing could
possibly go wrong because I didn’t have the time for it to go wrong.
Then, reality hit. Hard.
I woke up a couple of nights later, struggling to catch my breath. Something was off, but
I still hesitated. Surely, I was just overreacting. Maybe I needed more rest, more water,
less stress. I lay there in bed for the rest of the night. I did not wake up my husband. I
told myself that I was overreacting to what was probably normal after a hysterectomy. I
had my two-week post-surgery appointment the next day anyway, so “Don’t be a baby
and suck it up” became my mantra for the rest of the night.
I had my oldest son, who was 15 at the time and needed driving hours for his learner’s
permit, take me to my appointment the following day. After the exam, I mentioned, “Ya
know, I am having a tough time taking a deep breath.” She listened to my lungs, and
things escalated quickly. She sent me straight to the ER for a CT scan.
The moment I arrived, everything moved fast. A nurse met me at the entrance and
before I could even process what was happening, I was whisked straight to the CT
room—no waiting, no paperwork shuffle, just urgency. That should have been my first
clue. Looking back, I should have realized things were serious because I have never
entered an ER and been escorted straight back. Ten minutes after the enhanced CT
was done, nurses came in and hooked me up to an IV, injected medication into my
stomach, and told me they were going to be admitting me into the hospital. The ER
doctor came in and started talking about severe bilateral pulmonary embolisms. I was
taking it all in, talking to the nurses, having my son call his dad to let him know I would
probably be home late, and asking someone if I could check in at the restaurant. The
doctor and the nurses kept ignoring my questions while they were hooking me up to
monitors. I looked at the ER doctor and said, "I don’t understand. What’s happening? I
feel OK. I just can’t breathe very well."
He didn’t hesitate. He looked me dead in the eye and said, "Mrs. Beasley, on a scale of
1 to 10, you are at a 9 right now. I need you to be quiet and let me save your life."
It is not often in life that a moment can change everything, but for me, that was the
moment. As it turns out, that moment didn't just change me—it also left a lasting imprint
on my family. Not just because it was terrifying but because it made me rethink
everything—what really matters, what I was giving my time to, and whether I was taking
care of myself at all. Spoiler alert: I wasn’t.
What followed was the summer from hell. Because they put me on blood thinners so
soon after surgery, I started having internal bleeding. It took several months to get me
stabilized, during which time I was in and out of the hospital, 17 days in the ICU, and
one year before I could walk up a flight of stairs.
We live in a world that glorifies the hustle, the grind, the never-ending to-do lists.
Somewhere along the way, we started wearing exhaustion like a badge of honor. But let
me tell you—when you find yourself staring down a ‘10,’ that never-ending to-do list
doesn’t matter. The people do. The little moments do. The life you’re trying so hard to
build? It’s already happening right now, in the quiet, in the chaos, in the moments you
don’t stop to appreciate.
I wish I could say I immediately turned my life around, but let’s be real—I’m still a work
in progress. (Aren’t we all?) What I did do, though, was start paying attention. I started
asking myself better questions: Am I running toward something that actually matters, or
just running? Am I living in a way I won’t regret when I finally hit a ‘10’? And most
importantly—am I taking care of myself so I don’t end up back there before my time?
So here’s what I’ve learned: Take the trip. Make the call. Laugh at the dumb jokes. Eat
the cake. Give yourself permission to slow down. The world won’t end if you pause for a
moment—but if you don’t, you just might miss the best parts of your life happening right
in front of you.
Years later, I realized just how much that number had stuck with me. My youngest son,
who was only seven when all of this happened, came home at 19 with a tattoo on his
chest: the number 9. When I asked him why, he said, 'Because every time I had a bad
day, lost a game, or didn’t come in first in a track meet, you would ask me—Is this a 9?
So I use it to keep things in perspective.' That moment floored me. Without even
realizing it, I had passed on a lesson that he carried with him into adulthood.
A few years later, I followed suit. I remember sitting in the tattoo shop, feeling the buzz
of the needle on my wrist, and thinking about everything that number had come to
mean. It wasn’t just a reminder of what I had been through—it was a promise to myself.
A commitment to never let the little things cloud what truly matters. To be present. To
recognize the difference between inconvenience and crisis. To keep perspective. Now, I
have one tattoo—a simple number 9 on the inside of my wrist. A constant reminder that
most things in life aren’t a 9 and that the ones that are deserve my full attention.
If my story can remind even one person to take a breath and cherish the small things,
then maybe that ‘9’ was worth it. Because in the end, life isn’t about the number—it’s
about what you do with the moments in between.
