Lightning does actually strike….
It’s been a long time since I’ve typed anything in the blog genre. It’s been a long time since I strung together any time to say anything. I’ve been hungry to write, but every time I get around my computer, someone else finds something I need to do RIGHT THEN, or someone else needs to use it, or I’m supposed to be doing something else, or I’ve been working or eating or sleeping. Or, as is most recent, having a myocardial infarction: “Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as transient apical ballooning syndrome, apical ballooning cardiomyopathy, stress-induced cardiomyopathy, Gebrochenes-Herz-Syndrom, and simply stress cardiomyopathy, is a type of non-ischemic cardiomyopathy in which there is a sudden temporary weakening of the myocardium (the muscle of the heart). Because this weakening can be triggered by emotional stress, such as the death of a loved one, a break-up, or constant anxiety, the condition is also known as broken heart syndrome. Stress cardiomyopathy is a well-recognized cause of acute heart failure, lethal ventricular arrhythmias, and ventricular rupture.” I go along, feeling fine, for most of my life. Don’t get THAT part wrong, I am a rather gifted hypochondriac. I have manufactured some LU-LUs in my day. I’ve had headaches, anxiety, depression, extreme dysmenorrhea, plus regular coughs, colds, flu, and acid stomach/gas stuff. Plus I’ve given myself a couple of really great head injuries, on and off the job. None of that could prepare this former Christian Scientist for what was going to transpire the couple of weeks leading up to July the 6th, 2011.
I’d been doing so well for about 4 months on my plant-based diet, reduced oil intake, low fat, all vegetable-based foods ~ I’d been losing weight, gaining muscle and stamina and feeling really, genuinely happy. I thought I would try to wean myself off of my anti-depressant medication. I didn’t research it, I didn’t talk to a doctor about it, I just started reducing the amount I was taking. At the same time, I was doing pretty strenuous work at times and would make my chest muscles sore from it. So when my chest was hurting, it felt like arm-connective muscles from working, not heart pain. Then some of the symptoms of withdrawal started getting severe, plus I was coping with ingesting a LOT of spicy food, which I love but which does NOT love ME. (Historically a relationship I am all-too-familiar with and used to continuing, even at my peril). I was chewing tums before and after a meal, sometimes, if it was really spicy. So there’s acid and gas involved, plus these normal pains from working a bit too strenuously for a woman my age, trying to keep up with the “kids” on the job.
It had been about a week ~ maybe 5 days or more ~ since I’d taken my last dose of my medication. I got up, had my usual GIANT cup of coffee, I think I took Excedrin because I had been battling a wicked headache, but I’m not sure if it was that morning, but pretty sure. I was at work early-on-time, it was going to be another sunny, warm day up in the attic of this school, so I was anxious to get in and get started with the work before the heat of the day ~ the day before, I had sweated through everything on me, wiring in the really HOT part of the day, and promised my foreman I would finish up the next day when it was early and much cooler. I finished up, and suddenly felt EXTREMELY nauseous, and in my middle generally felt the worst I’ve felt in my life. I got my self and my tools down out of the attic, sat down, and called Wendy. I told her I felt like I was going to die. Now that I was sitting in the cool teacher’s lounge, my heart was starting to clench. For the first time, it didn’t feel like my chest muscles, it felt like my heart, and I couldn’t shake the nausea. I was still telling myself it was withdrawal from the medication, and asked Wendy to get me in right away to see a Dr. I got in the car and headed home. I felt deadened, achy and sick. All I wanted to do was lie down on the cool floor in the kitchen. I denied I was really having anything more than medication withdrawal symptoms, and it was a rare miracle I got myself out of work, because I just NEVER feel as though going home is warranted. Never.
When I got home, Wendy was working, weeding in the back yard, so I just laid on the kitchen floor. It didn’t make me feel better. No position, sitting nor standing, made any difference, I still felt sick, pained, and like I was not able to do anything, which ramped up my anxiety. We waited an hour for the Dr. appointment, and then Wendy drove us there. Dr’s office took an EKG, and said everything looked fine, but to be SURE, we should go to the ER, right away. He said, “an ambulance isn’t going to get you there that much faster, but that’s how you need to go, now, and as quick as possible.” The last thing the Dr said to me was, “You don’t LOOK bad at ALL, you look GREAT for (feeling the way you do)…” We left the Dr’s office and at about 11:30 got to the ER, and I was soon checked in and in an uncomfortable backless gown, getting asked dozens of questions, poked, EKG’d, X-rayed, and on and on. Alarmingly, my blood work showed I’d HAD a heart attack, only not that day, but in the recent past! Further, they were going spelunking in me to see how bad the arterial blockage was and if they needed to put in shunts right away.
Suddenly there were people ~ two of the coolest women I’ve ever met, btw ~ working on me, prepping me for a procedure, putting things on my back in case my heart stopped and they needed to jump-start it again. Now I was fully panicking, partly because I was in total denial up to this point, and had discounted and dismissed all of my symptoms. This was unprecedented in my little life, and I was not prepared. Plus my partner, upon learning that the blood work came back with alarmingly high levels of something it shouldn’t (the enzymes the first Dr at the clinic appointment warned me about), completely went to pieces on me, crying and looking terrified herself. I began to realize the ripple effect: I was in a hospital. Wendy was scared. Chad would find out, and likely be scared, too. My parents. My siblings. Wendy’s parents. Wendy’s sister and family. My family of choice. All my Facebook friends. I had crossed over. I was no longer in control of being dismissive, of ignoring or down-playing symptoms. I was “that girl” ~ I had a heart attack, and was potentially going to have life-changing, very serious surgery. If I wasn’t making the monitor beep BEFORE, (but I was), I sure as Hell was now.
I wasn’t allowed to move. No comforting Wendy with a hug, no sitting up to show everyone I was FINE…I wasn’t even allowed to take off my own pants. Couldn’t help getting on/off the gurney. Lay as still as possible, keep breathing. That’s the trick, isn’t it? I realized, over that terrifying 8 hours between when they admitted me to the ER and when I was allowed to sit up again, that much of my life, I hold my breath. When I’m driving a nail, drilling in a screw at work, I hold my breath. When I’m unsure of someone else’s driving at a given moment, I hold my breath. When I’m “swimming” I hold my breath. I don’t realize half of the time I’m doing it until I exhale and breathe again. Sometimes I would see spots or flashes of red. Now all I could do was focus on the in breath, the out breath, remember Pam Wyderka in the back room at the Gem theater, “breathe in blue, feel the cool fill you up, breathe out red, hot, flame hot, get all of the hot out and let the cool fill you up, head to toe…” Ahh, breathing exercises, essential to serious actors. Wendy wasn’t allowed to go into this procedure with me, which likely was good because they wouldn’t have been able to peel her up off the ground from seeing the big needles they needed to use on me, anyway. But just before she kissed me goodbye to go to the waiting room, she said, “You have got to stop scaring the otter.” Bet that made the staff curious. The Otter is a whole ‘nother blog itself. At least she stopped saying “don’t ever scare ME like this again.” I wasn’t going to, I didn’t mean to this time, I wouldn’t if I could help it…
My mind bounced all around my life, but when I was laying on my back, and they anesthetized me, I began to realize there were two different kind of lighting fixtures over my table in this room, and began pondering why that would be, the wattage and type of light bulbs used, and on like that. Just like that, my old geeky self, survival skills kicking in, because if I’m focused on something logical, something my brain can chew on, I’m not thinking at all about what’s happening to me on that table. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been able to disconnect with unpleasantness happening, to be someone else, somewhere else, to not feel the bad I was feeling. (The wicked anesthetic needle was felt, however, but after that, little else.)
They didn’t find any blockage. No reduction in my arterial walls due to plaque, no hardening, no build-up, my arteries were clean as a whistle! YAY~ NO SURGERY, NO SHUNTS!
Now the REAL fun began….
I was wheeled into a room at the ICU and told that in order to make sure I didn’t rupture the exploration site, I needed to lay flat on my back, motionless, for 6 hours. Piece of cake, I thought. They hooked up a monitor to several points on me, and conducted a couple more EKGs. They did an echo of my heart(pictures from all angles, and a flashy, coloriffic thingy that showed blood in-go and out-go in brilliant color images ~ I told the man I wanted a DVD of THAT, and he said, “you’ll have to ask your cardiologist about that.”) All the while I had visitors ~ Carialta, my Seattle Sister, dear to my heart and part of my life for the last 13 years, was there. A very skilled nurse herself, she asked them lots of questions, all the while reassuring me. I was a lot less alarmed when the beeps and chimes went off on my monitors when her face looked unfazed, but a bit more alarmed when SHE looked worried. Of course, Wendy was there, through it all, a trooper. I’m not sure she ever got to eat her sandwich ~ she went to get a sandwich when they were wheeling me in for the x-ray and when she returned with it, they sprung the bad news on her in the hallway. I thought she was going to drop it! I’m pretty sure she lost her appetite with anxiety and grief. Not the way to diet, just sayin….
Anne came to visit, and Chad made it, too ~ I was so glad to see each and every person, but talking was exhausting, and I had had such a very long day. A meal was brought in, finally, and I managed to eat a half of a sandwich and I think some decaf coffee. Apparently I was never going to be allowed caffeine again. So that ended THAT argument Wendy and I had been having for a couple of years (difficult to tell which of us is more stubborn, I still think she has me beat by a small margin) and started a rager of a headache. The next morning I sweet-talked one of the nurses out of a cup of regular coffee from the nurses station and it was heavenly, plus Wendy brought me a coffee with soy milk and it was half-caf-half-decaf, that same day. From there on out, I was pretty well cut off from caffeine, and suffered a headache I couldn’t treat the way I usually did, because Excedrin is laced with caffeine! So there was that.
The automatic BP cuff was taking my BP every hour and by the time I was entering my first night stay at the hospital, they turned it down to only every 3 hours. I took off the pulse/ox myself, it was just too much annoying stuff bugging me. The monitor beeped angrily, but I didn’t care. The nurse said it was ok for a while. That all was a relief. I remember with remarkable clarity the face, but not the name, of the male nurse that assisted me with using and then removing a bedpan for the first time in my life. Even after the ghastly episiotomy-tear I got when Chad was born, I still got to use the bathroom. Scary as Hell, but I did. I don’t know, maybe there was a catheter at first, I HAVE forgotten a lot of what happened THAT series of days, blissfully. I hated the bedpan, I certainly didn’t want to do THAT again, and they were preparing to give me something to sleep ~ AMBIEN ~ and one nurse said, “I don’t want her to stumble going to the bathroom in the night, as she’s never had Ambien before, we don’t know how she will react” and I thought, “uh-oh, she’s got a distinctly ‘catheter’ look in her eye” as they both sized me up, and I said, “I can walk to the bathroom” and she said, “do you have to go now?” Oh my gosh, Ana, SAY YES or she will put a catheter in! “Y-yes ~ YES, I do.” Think think. “Here’s what I will do, I will go and use the bathroom, then I should be good for the night and you can administer the Ambien, okay?” “That sounds like a good plan,” she says, and I relax back onto my bed ~ whew! That was close! So I sat up and stood up, and used the restroom, gave myself a bit of a once-over from the awful bedpan incident residual, and returned to bed, happy as I could be trailing a monitor on wheels, I guess.
I’d like to say the rest of my time at the hospital was a blur, but most of it I remember with remarkable clarity. There wasn’t anywhere for Wendy to sleep in my room with me, and certainly the bed wasn’t big enough for both of us, so she went home at night, but she didn’t sleep ~ she couldn’t rest well at all, both from being apart from me and from worry ~ and no one was giving HER Ambien, just sayin’. My great friend ~like a big brother or an Uncle in my family of choice ~ Sean came to visit me the next day, and he, like most people, was kind of mixed between inquiring, “how the heck did THAT happen?” and admonishing, “you scared us, don’t do that again!” I’m most surprised by that last part, as everyone seemed to be up on that sentiment, as if I had any control, or was in any way enjoying this little foray into immobility and knocking on death’s door. It wasn’t MY idea! Sheesh! I saw Anne again ~ she visited every day, bless her heart. Sara, my stepdaughter, visited me a couple of times, and was kind and not neurotic at all, bless her. Wendy had laundered my iPod just days before all of this and so she loaned me her iPod, bless HER heart, so I visited with Natalie Merchant and Pink and the crew when I had no 3-D visitors. A great lot of support, kindness and attention was given to me by the nursing assistants at this hospital. They were like cheerleaders, room service, maid, valet and pinch-hit Moms the whole time. The cafeteria even called ME once, when I was out of ICU, because I hadn’t ordered any lunch (I had eaten food Chad brought me the day before, for breakfast. Vegan choices were slim and not too tasty at the hospital. So they hadn’t had a food order from me ALL DAY). There were Polish, Indian, Samoan, Greek, and good old black and white women tending to me ~ they asked about my name, my ethnicity, so I thought it only fair to ask about theirs. Fascinating people, caring, kind. It was as if they got it that this was a dreadful place to be, and several referred to me as their favorite, because I was always alert, cheerful, and painfully upbeat for having just had a heart attack. One of the ICU night nurses stopped by and saw me when I was in a regular room later in the week. She thought I had gone home when I left ICU, and I said, “I thought I was going home, too!” The wonderful woman who prepped me for that procedure the first day also stopped in to see me, remembering Wendy by name out in the hall, and then telling me she was surprised to see me, too, still here. I felt like I was being visited by a celebrity, she was so cool! It definitely helped with my recovery.
I got to talk to my Mom on the phone almost right away, and then again a couple days later. She and Wendy had been talking a lot while I was there, and they definitely bonded over this experience. My Mom discovered, as she told me, that Wendy is just the COOLEST person and that if she wanted the straight poop on what was really going on with ME, she should talk to HER, because I tend to couch things, I try to protect my Mom from anything unpleasant or bad. My brother Treb sounded like my brother when he left a message on the phone, and like my Dad when I talked to him later. Kind of gruff-you-woke-me-up-disoriented, only I didn’t wake him and he was perfectly lucid. My sister, though I actually HAD her phone number in my phone, I thought I didn’t, so she wasn’t exactly the first to know, poor kid. She called and I talked to her on the phone a couple of days into it. She immediately informed me that there were easier ways to get green jello, and what the heck was I doing? Trying to up-end the family pecking order? I love that. Still the big sister.
Wendy and Chad made sure I ate properly for having been on the brink, bringing me healthy, low-fat, vegan snacks and refilling my ice water whenever they were there, but what Wendy brought Friday morning was certainly a big surprise. Our favorite pre-vegan breakfast place discovery, Cyndi’s Pancake House, was going to close, and despite their decidedly NON-Vegan choices, we vowed to go one more time before they were gone from our neighborhood forever. (I will likely blog about my feelings about them another time). Now, in the hospital, people come at 5AM to take your blood, and you can have breakfast pretty much from 7:30-8AM – ON, so when Wen asked me to wait for her, that she was bringing a surprise, it was HARD to wait, because she didn’t come until later. (I survived on Chad’s snacks and ice water, I put away a LOT of ice water, because people kept bringing me a fresh pitcher, who can say no?) When Wendy arrived, I was delighted to find she’d gone by Cyndi’s and gotten my favorite breakfast: two eggs over easy, crisp and chewy bacon, two pancakes, and hash browns ~ YUMMY! The nurse in charge was in there interviewing me, and she said that since my arterial pathways were not a concern, she was going to look the other way on the whole deal. Maple syrup and EVERYTHING! That same day, I got to take a shower, and the lovely assistant made sure I had a clean gown, PLUS she gave me trousers and a robe ~ DOUBLE yay! It was all in that hospital gown material, but I can’t tell you how happy I was to get PANTS! The shower was more than welcome, I had showered Tuesday night for Wednesday, and not since, so I had almost 3 full days of yecchy, I felt AWFUL, especially after that bedpan incident, all the way back on Wednesday. I’d been kind of whiny about it, good thing I was usually so good-dispositiony about everything else…
I felt better accepting visitors after I’d showered. (I was in a pretty weakened state after being in bed for a couple of days, so when the Baby Shampoo they gave me still had the wicked little foil/plastic seal on it, and all I had was my hospital wristband** on me, which was NOT, as it turns out, stiff enough to puncture it. I used the generic body wash stuff in my hair, too, big whoop, I don’t have that much hair anyway, but you would have laughed to see me looking around like a suicidal maniac for something sharp in the bathroom. My pinky was just too big, and I wasn’t strong enough to rip it off. <sigh>) I also enjoyed a few really swell naps. Sleeping was okay and even encouraged here ~ yippee!!! Wendy had to go and get some stuff done, but was coming back in the evening. I got a surprise to give HER this time ~ they did another EKG later that morning, and found that I was solid enough to go home that evening ~ !!! I telephoned Wendy and she was VERY excited, and I let Chad and Sara know, too, since they were both planning a visit, bless them, and we called Anne as we were walking out of the hospital, because she was slated to visit again that afternoon/evening too! I had spent most of Friday and some of Thursday fighting a headache, and now it was really getting annoying. The nurse in charge on Friday was telling me to press the point between my thumb and index finger, and I was so mad ~ this is a hospital, where the GOOD DRUGS are, and she wants me to WHAT? I complied, though, cuz that’s what I do! Finding out I was going home made it a world better, though. I was out by around 6PM or so, and Wendy, (who had made a LOT of friends with the nursing staff by bringing her homemade refrigerator pickles and fresh picked raspberries for them the first night I was out of ICU) came up and said her goodbyes to all our friends we’d made on the floor. I thanked everyone on my way to the elevator and was grateful, ever so, to be going home.
So what did I learn? A little about myself, in that I have gotten really good at ignoring, blowing off, minimizing, and otherwise ignoring the usual and customary signals my body gives me all the time to tell me how things are going. I learned that the whole “single stressful event” to this day evades me, I have NO idea what triggered that attack. I will never leave hospital tape on longer than is required and necessary, because the one arm lost skin when I took the tape off the daily tap spot for my labs, and that hurt almost worse than the spot they went spelunking from ~ YIKES ~ and the IV spot in my other arm took about a week to work/wash/wear/live the tape residue off of after I was home. Great glue stick, Mary, what is that stuff MADE with? I learned my family rallies around me when stuff happens, because stuff usually doesn’t happen to me, but when it does, it’s nice to know they are with me, everywhere and always. And most importantly, I learned that the hospital, while no place for a sick person, CAN be full of people who care and is actually not that scary after all. This particular hospital treated me with care, respect, and kindness, and didn’t treat anyone in my family ~ my partner, my kids, my odd assortment of friends ~ they didn’t make anyone feel alien, awkward, or unwelcome. In fact, they made everyone feel just as they should feel, a part of my care and getting betterness. That was key in my quick recovery ~ that, and we are made of sturdy stuff in my family. What I learned from this experience is that I’m definitely not done. I have living to do, people to love and a son who still needs me to be his Mom. I have sights yet to see, things yet to write and think about and digest and write again. I have Christmas trees yet to decorate, pies yet to bake, I have pictures to take, graduations, weddings, and yes, funerals to attend, music to play, bikes to ride, parades to be in, people to touch and be touched by, and I am NOT DONE HERE YET. It didn’t SCARE me so much as it settled me. I can hold on tight to things that bother me, like always, or I can smile and let them go. Like a newly reformed addict, though, I am quick to try to point out other people’s hanging on to stuff, and THAT doesn’t go very well, understandably. I’ve been through this experience, alone in my conclusions and resolve. Everyone else is going to have to have their own ~ epiphany, paradigm shift, a-ha moment, whatever you want to call it ~ this is mine alone. I’ve been struck by lightning, and survived it. I met some amazing people along the way, discovered friendship and love I didn’t know how much I had, and I won’t forget that any time soon. I guess that’s enough. For now.
**the hospital wristband has taken on a ride-pass quality nowadays, where they scan everything to be charged to you ~ take an aspirin? scan the wristband. Eat a meal? scan the band. It was a little unnerving, but I got to cut it off and take it home, and since I was wakeful so much of my visit, I feel confident no one snuck in and scanned anything really good/illicit on my band while I was “out”.
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