Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) and Our Ledgers

Large pieces of life gradually become ledger books.  I often thought marriage became an enormous ledger (you know - I cleaned the kitchen last time...I get to be a bitch today because you were a toad yesterday...).

SCA fouls up the ledgers.  It knocks our routine relationships out of balance.  How much we care about different parts of our lives shifts,  sometimes in small ways and other times closer to volcanically.  Eruptions.  Sometimes it seems like a total disorientation.  Upside down.  Planet gone wobbly.

Pre-SCA, when we had a spat (I was mocked for using that word, but I like it - it's a wonderful word) - in a spat or argument or real fight, we measured our next action, at least in part, with one eye on that mental ledger. I apologized first last time.... OR....he was more wrong than I was here, so he has to apologize first. ...OR he was really wrong this time - nothing short of flowers will work.

Since the SCA, it seems the minor disturbances are unchanged - I may withhold an apology or a gesture to make sure the delicate balance does not get too far out of whack.  But on the big ones, where a relationship or at least harmony is at stake  - I sometimes am almost oblivious to that balance.  It doesn't matter to me who was more wrong.  It doesn't matter to me if I over-apologize or meet more than halfway.  Doesn't even matter if I risk going where I am not welcome.  The chance at preserving or improving an important relationship trumps book-balancing.  Post SCA, my tolerance for regrets has sunk to near zero; if I can avoid regretting an action or inaction, I am going to.  And really - making the first step towards reconciliation or taking the larger step - these are rarely the sources of our regrets.

We all know life is short.  We SCA survivors know it can be starkly, coldly short.  Blink of an eye short.  May not wake up tomorrow short. That next electrical disruption can happen in the next 5 minutes.  Or in 20 years.  One thing is certain; regrets are not how we want to spend our time.  If I embarrass myself - who gives a damn.

Photo courtesy of an un-friend.

Fear as Fever

Fears are normal.  Once you survive Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA), you almost have to build an entirely new relationship with fear.  It is constant; it follows us around every single place we go. It is right there with us every single step through the day. We make all our decisions about even the smallest parts of life with a nod towards the presence of fear.  I think of it as analogous to walking around with a low-grade fever.  Not the knock-you-on-your-butt fever of 103 that would align with terror, but rather that half-a-degree fever.  It's just always there, always there.

My cell phone is being repaired. (I am SO unhip that I just can't make the shift to a smart phone; I am hanging on to my ancient RAZR for dear life).  So no cell phone for a whopping 3 days.

Before the SCA, I often lost track of my cell phone.   I didn't always carry it; I let the battery go dead - it was just not a part of everyday life.

Now, the phone is a lifeline.  Its role has changed. It has my emergency contact numbers.  When I swim in the ocean alone or walk on the beach, I think of the phone as my identification information if something happens.  It's 10% there so I can call 911, but it's 90% there so that I can be identified if my heart stops.  It's not dramatic; it's just a new role for the phone in my life.  Something I don't even think about, but I always have it with me.

But not these three days.  It is unnerving.

Fear - how bizarre.  Add to the list - fear of being without cell phone.
Sudden Cardiac Arrest just changes us.

P.S. Cell phones don't always bounce.

Good Days But I Am An Ass - The Cleat Board

Until today, it's been a good week - played hooky one day last week for a long, long outstanding boating day. Loved it. And I passed some exams; actually both Skippy and I did.

And the good days continued. The other day, a friend made me a "cleat board" - yes, in the photo, that is a "cleat board". I suppose it might be hard for some to understand how touched I was - seriously. I adore this friend and the fact that he understood and wanted to help with my deep dread of having to learn knots. (That part of my brain just isn't there. Or if it is there, it doesn't work.   And I can't blame the Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) - it's been going on for years.)

So I have to learn knots, and I have a friend who made me a cleat board. THAT, in my book, is an excellent day.

And then I became an ass. This may sound odd for a grown up adult, but I do not understand the rules of social drinking. Haven't been one, don't know many - most of the drinkers I have known have been problem drinkers, not social ones. I so like this person, he is important to me; I want him to like me. Simple, we learned this in what - 4th grade? But I f'd up. I fear that in my feeble attempts to 'fit in' I committed "social-drinker-violations"; I just don't know the rules.

I fear I made him feel lousy; I didn't understand that it was NOT OK to rib about forgetting details of things that occurred while over-drinking. I didn't get that it is NOT OK to rib about his apparently making a choice to limit what he drank yesterday. But I should know. I am an adult. AND I object when people rib me about drinking too little. I should have known.

All that adds up to - I am an idiot. I was an ass. I probably succeeding in both making him feel lousy and making myself less likable. And I don't know how to fix it.

I'm hoping it comes to me.

Staying Off Those Roads - John's Quote

Was out with a friend (J.) last night. Got to feeling somewhat contemplative about - what else - the SCA. I guess it's either that or affairs of the heart, so it's the SCA today.

I had my arrest in the ER. I had gone in after awaking with an odd sensation in my chest. I got there with about 1o minutes to spare and then ----sudden cardiac arrest. The hospital is on Wrightsville Avenue. So much for background. (Oh, my friend had had a few beers; I was on driving duty - for a change of pace; that's normally his job).

In my contemplative moment, I commented to J. that Wrightsville Avenue is one of my favorite routes towards the city. BUT that sometimes when I drive past that hospital, I find myself anxious all over again about what had happened there.

My friend leaned in, looked somewhat quizzical and said -

"Just don't drive on Wrightsville Avenue".

Out of the mouths of beer bottles........

I Can Be Such a Jerk

Geez. We like to think of ourselves as nice people, but sometimes, I just have to wonder what the hell I was thinking.

Yesterday, I had a conversation with a former colleague who had lost his wife years ago - all I had known was that her death was sudden and she was horribly young (+- 40) and had left behind a husband and multiple young children. Yesterday, he told me that she was in the SCA 98% - she died of Sudden Cardiac Arrest. (Back then, I think they were still often calling it Sudden Death Syndrome. I have one RN who calls it that - as you might imagine, not my favorite term).

We know 98% don't survive. Being in the 2% club is obviously a matter of great luck, though I know some believe that our survival and their death are part of some "plan" - not me - I just think I was extraordinarily lucky that day. I woke up to odd sensations; she did not wake up.

But back to my being a jerk. I have whined and complained about the defibrillator, about dealing with fears, about the looming specter of dating and revealing this crap, about people expecting me to have earth-shattering revelations, blah blah blah.

I have also been grateful - very, very grateful. But not enough.

This morning as I thought about our conversation yesterday and what he and his children lived through - the horror, the shock of that day, the incomprehesibilty of it and all they had to come to terms with.

I need to make amends to my loved ones who got and made the phone calls that morning. They were told I was near death (well, technically true, I guess. But I was never 'sick' - the heart stopped, they restarted it and I felt fine.). They were told I could have serious heart damage and/or brain damage (happily, I had neither. Aside from an ever-deteriorating memory that is probably utterly unrelated to SCA).

They got those phone calls. I can now picture it; making the decisions about who was traveling to Wilmington when, who was to talk with the doctors, all that. Happily for them, this was short lived - I was up and around and fine later the same day. Shell-shocked at the events, scared, confused, but up and around nonetheless.

They got and made those phone calls. I'm not sure I have stopped to genuinely consider what that day was like for them. Unlike my former colleague, their horror lasted only a day; his was probably interminable. But I never have asked them what their day was like; I have told them (probably ad nauseum) what MINE was like, but I guess I felt entitled to that level of self-absorption. I mean, if we are not permitted to be self-focussed about surviving Sudden Cardiac Arrest, then when?

I can be such a jerk. I will make my amends.

Celebratory Anxiety or Anxious Celebration

I must admit that I am still not feeling celebratory. Skippy's (the defibrillator's) first birthday is around the corner (September 5). I fully expected to feel joyful, and thought I'd be planning a gratitude-filled celebration. However, while it certainly has been on my mind relentlessly in the past week or two, instead of that joy, I continue to feel anxious.

This anxiety is not rational (is any?). It's out of character for me to dwell on what I cannot control or impact, but I continue to dwell on that morning one year ago. I want there to be cause and effect for the Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA); I want there to have been undeniable signs and symptoms that morning that would have anyone,anywhere seek medical attention. Every now and then, I also just wish it had never happened, but truthfully, not too much of that.


Every now and then I think "why me?" but not often. Recently, I had to listen to an acquaintance who has subjected his body to massive abuse for decades tell me he came through his physical with flying colors. Annoying, while I prepare to mark the date of my implanted defibrillator. But these are not the dominant thoughts; these pass quickly. The 'why me?' question also passes or dissolves quickly into thoughts of my gifts - decent IQ, good hair -- what we inherit is a crap shoot, so I don't muse often or for long about getting a raw deal with SCA.

But the anxiety is from there having been no known reason and even more frightening, no compelling symptoms or signs. All I had that morning was an unnerving sensation that something was weird in my chest (turned out to be rapid heart rate). My going to the ER was just very, very lucky. I've had loved ones tell me that I went because I was intelligent enough to recognize that something very out of the ordinary was happening. I was there that morning, and I just don't think it was a decision based on IQ level.

It was instinct; it was fear of the unknown; it was something that got me to the ER.
So I am wrestling these days with the anxiety of the lack of a known cause for the SCA, no available prediction on recurrence, a complete lack of understanding of why I went to the ER and therefore survived, and having no confidence I would recognize a sign/symptom again.

But aside from all that, I'm looking forward to 9/5. that was pure sarcasm; I am just looking forward to having the date in my rear view mirror. This is not fun.

How to Celebrate?

They say..... "they" being people who survive Sudden Cardiac Arrest.... they say that we should celebrate our SCA date as our "second birthday". Mine is coming up - on 9/5/10, it will be one year. One entire, jaw-droppingly astonishing year.

I've largely grown accustomed to Skippy the defibrillator's presence; I've wrestled to the ground many of the fears that started out being so enormous they were starkly, nakedly and overwhelmingly terrifying. But the thing that I have in no way gotten used to is that there are moments that come out of nowhere where it all just knocks me on my heels. Figuratively, I'm happy to say.

Moments that come out of the blue. Like cravings for cigarettes 12+ years after the last one I smoked - bang, the moment is there. Real, raw, sharp, insistent, demanding. The SCA 'out of the blue' moments are breathtaking in their way. It's just that bright light blast of "damn - did that ACTUALLY happen to ME?" My flipping heart just stopped? STOPPED?
That one is followed so quickly by the still unanswered "how the hell did I know to go to the Emergency Room that morning?" I have replayed and replayed and replayed that morning 9/5/09 and honestly, I still don't genuinely understand what made me go. And I've replayed the chain of events if I had NOT gone, or even if I had not gone exactly when I did.
And I didn't go to the ER the moment I woke up that day. I woke up, felt weird and probably spent 20-30 minutes trying to sort out what was wrong and what to do. So after a half hour or so, something made me go.

I was in the ER only around 10 minutes before the arrest. A 10 minute window. 600 seconds. Is that right? 600? Life and death.
If I had not gone to the ER when I did, I would have arrested at home; Tom probably would not have woken up.
That would have been my end.
600 seconds.

After musing and rolling around for a few minutes grappling with the out-of-the-blue SCA moment, my core of uber pragmatism takes over and I am transported back to the far less dramatic present.

So now I am back to -- how to celebrate? I've never been one for rituals. I only attended my high school graduation because my parents forced me to; I skipped both with my college and Law School graduations. My wedding was small, quick and informal. Never much cared for New Year's.

But even I, anti-ritual and pragmatic; even I feel a profound obligation and desire to mark this date.

At least this evening I do.
I just don't know yet how to....

As we say, what a wonderful problem to have.

The Pressure of Survival / The Right to Goof Off

Surviving Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) puts you into a very small club. I've been told that the survival rate is 2% (but then someone corrected me and said it was actually 3% - hardly a comforting difference to me). Whether it's 2% or 3% or 4%, it's a very small group. 96-98 out of 100 people who experience SCA die - permanently die, not just have a brush with death. Really die. Finito. End of the line. Not coming back no more.

But I didn't, and I have online acquaintances who didn't either - we are in the 2%. In the weeks immediately after the SCA when I was having constant (or it felt constant) contact with various medical personnel, I heard over and over references to destiny -

- God must have had a plan for you

- God wasn't finished with you yet.

And then even more references to what (to me) feels like some pretty significant expectations:

- Oh, this experience must give you a profound sense of purpose

- You are here for a reason

- It must change your entire perspective on what is important.

Well, yes and no. And while I know it is unseemly to complain about the after-math of survival, all of the above adds up to a burden. Or at least pressure. Not that I have ever been a total goof-off, but if I wanted to be, how on earth could I possibly justify it now? Did we lose that right?

Yes and no. Sure, I have times of profound introspection about how I want to spend my days that sometimes feel absolutely borrowed, BUT I also still get cranky waiting in a slow- moving checkout line. So the SCA survival hasn't completely changed my perspective. Just a bit, here and there.

But when people ask me these questions, sometimes it feels like pressure. Like I don't deserve to goof off, or if I do, even the goofing off must be profound. Can't be just regular, old-fashioned goofing off, it would have to be "pondering the essence of the universe" or "cherishing all the earth has to offer".

Sometimes, I just goof off. Throw off the mantle that because I got so flipping lucky 9.5.09 that I am now a deeper person or at minimum have an obligation to lead a deeper life.

Sometimes yes, sometimes not.

Failing and Perspective

I failed a bar exam. South Carolina no less. I have passed the only other two I have taken (Virginia and NC), but failed this one. Will re-take it in a few months. Unlike the more civilized CPA exam where I hear that one only retakes the portions one failed - in Bar Exam world, you start from square one. I have to pay a new application fee, get new fingerprints, new affidavits from people attesting to my acceptable character and fitness to practice SC law, and then take the whole damn thing again.

My issue with the SC exam was not the exam - it was that I had awful trouble getting motivated to study. The first one - in Virginia - the panic is so great that motivation was not an issue. If you don't pass that first exam, you don't get a license and you can't practice law. All that time in school, all that expense.... And when I took NC, I was less motivated to be sure, but I wanted to relocate and would not begin the process until I got my NC license. Passed that one too.

But taking the SC exam is for business reasons, and they just weren't compelling enough, apparently. I studied, but not nearly at the same level. When I received my rejection letter last week, I estimated that I missed passing by 2 points out of approximately 800. Crap.

To help with motivation this time, I'll post the rejection letter in my office, and maybe keep track of how much money the re-test will cost.

I was not surprised by failing; during the THREE DAY exam, I knew I was making up some SC state law - I knew my knowledge on SC insurance was far too slight -- I knew I was in trouble.

I've told friends that I could also blame the ex for so disrupting my life last summer and fall or I could blame Skippy, the implanted defibrillator. After all, the SCA was 9/09, and I started studying a mere 4 months later - and certainly there were and are days still when I am stunned to have gone through the experience. Stunned to have come that close to death (or to come back from death as a follower friend says), stunned to have survived it , apparently nearly entirely unscathed, stunned again about how astonishingly adaptable we humans are. Who the hell can come to terms with something like this? We can. We do.

Now if I can just pass the damn exam.

Nothing and Everything Changes

Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) changes everything. And then it changes nothing.

The initial aftermath is so stunning, shocking (no pun intended), far beyond unsettling. And not the purely physical manifestations - they are their own separate category. But mentally and emotionally, one starts with the MD or other clinicians explaining - sort of - what has happened.

And so it begins. First you deal with the immediate crap of it; and in my case, the physical 'crap' was really negligible. Relatively speaking, of course. Relative to others with SCA. Then, the mental and emotional adjustments begin. Initially, you think your whole world just changed. Everything in your whole world just changed. But then again - did it?

I was mortal before SCA. Granted, I didn't muse as often about my mortality as I have done post- SCA, but I don't muse about it daily anymore. It's a little more immediate than it was pre-Skippy, but not dramatically so. At least not today. Some days I guess I still feel like my mortality sits down with me for a visit - but not every single day.

I see risk a little differently. I should have worn a bike helmet before and I should wear one now. Difference is now I do. My risk of falling off the bike is a tiny bit higher (I'll fall off if Skippy the defibrillator fires). The damage from falling now v. then is the same. But I promised to wear one now, so I do.

And I worry that even with a medical green light, I may not find the courage to scuba dive again - that makes me as sad as anything. That is a risk and a fear I have not yet wrestled to the ground.

I never liked ladders; always felt nervous. Still do.

I struggled then with my weight. Still do.

Is my life shorter? Maybe yes, maybe no. Who knows?

Perhaps that is the most profound change from the SCA. A deep-seated certainty that we know nothing. And being at peace with that. Finding a joy in that. In a way, it is astonishingly liberating.

Reading Horoscopes a Day Late

Yes, I've been lax -too long since the last posting here.

And this one has nothing directly to do with SCA or near-death or those first ten minutes.

I just sent a horoscope to a friend who shares my "sign". Yes, I think horoscopes are incredibly silly; reading horoscopes is just a waste of eyesight ---- but how bad is it to read your horoscope a day late? If I ever write that great American novel, or even a mediocre one, I'll have to get that in the title. Or perhaps it would best be the title of a country-western song. But I do sometimes read them late - I get to the paper the next day and I STILL read the silly things.

I described it to my friend as the worst horoscope in the history of horoscopes. Here it was:

Sagittarius. "If you're inhaling a whiff of ambition, you'd be wise to ignore it. It is much too easy to overestimate your abilities or [be] too enthusiastic about something that may prove to be false".

As I said when I forwarded it to my Sagittarius friend: They just should have written "Don't bother. Go back to bed. Try again tomorrow".

Yesterday, I was walking on a deserted beach (yes, we have one here - Masonboro Island) musing about my future (an endeavor not for the faint of heart if your heart has taken to stopping). I am a lawyer in my 50's. Here's the funny part - I BECAME a lawyer in my 50's. Before that, I had worked in the business end of health care. Law School was both horrible and exhilarating at this age.

I've been a lawyer nearly 2 years and my work has been business, corporate law, mostly but not exclusively for health care businesses. Yesterday, as I did what I love best - be outside on a magnificent day, surrounded by salt water, cacophony of sounds presented by birds --- feeling sand beneath my feet --- I was considering if this is the work I really want to do. I enjoy it, I think I'm pretty good at it, I can make a reasonable amount of money working not too strenuous hours, but I wonder.

Is it nuts to think about shifting gears again and doing work to protect this coast I love so much?

Thank God I didn't read that horoscope on the right day......

Surviving the SCA - come to terms with not dying.

Talking with a friend the other day and musing on our respective near-death experiences. My Sudden Cardiac Arrest was my second such event - the first was a few years ago diving in the Blue Hole in Belize. (equipment failure at 119 feet - yikes!). These are obviously very different episodes, but what they had in common was by the end of each of the two days, I was overwhelmed by the growing understanding that I could have died that day. It can take a while for that reality to sink all the way in; my mind just wanted to reject that concept - on both days.

Of course, we could each die every day; car accidents, killer Orca's, hurricanes, earthquakes, lightening - all possibilities each day. But those two days ---- those were days when death was really close by; he was sitting with me, hanging around to see if this were the day we left together.

I know I'm not alone; many people have near death experiences. And I think I am a fairly rational human being, but it can be terrifically difficult to come to terms with. (Yes, I know that's a preposition at the end of that sentence, and I remember Winston Churchill's quip to a young editor slashing his manuscript with red ink, murdering those prepositions: "This is nonsense up with which I will not put"....

Back to death. Some days I think I have come to terms with it and other days I know I have not. I was unbelievably lucky - not only did I survive (2% do), but because I was in the ER when it happened, I apparently did not suffer heart or brain damage - and so many people suffer grievously from one or the other or both. I took a bar exam this week (5 months after the SCA), with my 50+ year old memory - always a drag, but really - I am so fortunate that this kind of life is even possible for me.

This morning, in an Alanon meeting, where I had not spoken much, the topic was "Intimacy" and I was stunned that as I started to speak about the nature of my relationships in the aftermath of the SCA - I became emotional. I NEVER become emotional in public or the semi-public that is Alanon.

So I'm not there yet. I want to think that I am, but I know in my heart that I am not. If I were, if I had fully come to terms with the presence of death that day --- I would be able to speak of my family's response to the SCA without choking up.

Some days I just don't know what to do with this extraordinary luck.

Things We Now Think About

Such odd thoughts lurk around in the New World Order (that's the post SCA world order....). Thoughts that are along the lines of an adult version of what they told us as little girls --- always to wear clean underwear because you might end up in the Emergency Room. (did they tell little boys that as well? Who tells innocent children these frightful things - frightful both in terms of the relationship with undergarments and having us worry about the ER - who does this? Aside from the Sisters of Mercy, of course.).

This adult version, when one has a daily, ongoing relationship with one's mortality, is along the lines of "Do I care if the house is a total mess? If I have an SCA episode, I will either be no longer with us or in the hospital - most likely). Who will come in? Should I leave instructions that NO ONE is to read my journal? Even post-mortem, I just don't like that idea - though really, that unease is just completely irrational. I mean post-mortem is post mortem. But I guess the worst case scenario (in terms of the journal, messy house, yesterday's underwear) is that I land in a hospital in such a state that a family member or friend has to come into the house to get Stella (the dog) and/or belongings to take to the hospital, etc. Of course, in my irrational mind, they wander about looking through my things, inventorying my undergarments, reading what I am sure is a toss up between an incomprehensible or deathly dull journal... and THEN they get the dog and/or my belongings. And what makes it worst case is that I am still among the land of the living and have to cope with embarrassment or guilt for having hurt someone's feelings in the writings. (I used to self-edit when I lived with Tom. Then as the relationship deteriorated, I became more direct again; after all, by then I think I felt spiteful - if he read it, it was OK that his feelings get hurt. Perhaps even desirable).

And the thing of it is - I KNOW that I really should be worrying about doing my taxes, or passing the upcoming SC bar exam, or staying on my new diet, or getting my work done for a new client --- anything really, other than the state of my undergarments or journal-seeking friends and family or the house being in a state.

Thank goodness I don't have cats.

Bird Population

I e-met a woman the other day who is struggling with what she calls post-traumatic stress disorder 2 years after her SCA. She faces depression and with some significant physical limitations.

It may me realize yet again how extraordinarily lucky I was on 9/5/09. As my sister says - this is why we buy lottery tickets; the percentages alone don't tell the entire story of chances and possibilities, just the probabilities. (And I sincerely hope my economics professor nephew never sees this; I can hear the groan all the way from UC Davis). But the odds for me were - 98% die after SCA AND of the 2% who survive, the overwhelming majority suffer brain damage and/or physical damage and long rehab processes. I suffered neither.

Luck, luck, luck - I went to the ER 10 minutes before the SCA, so my luck was having and recognizing and responding to the instinct to go. Once there, my survival and lack of physical and mental damage were just the geography - how close to paddles I was. I was awake, joking and in full command of whatever brain power I had before the SCA - in minutes. (Admittedly, the jokes were not good ones and my delivery was probably poor as well). And physically, aside from blood pressure that took weeks to settle down - no damage. And remarkably, virtually no damage to the heart itself.

So I feel for the woman who struggles with depression and PTSD - we all hear all the flipping time how lucky we are and the one that really grates on me is the "God must have a plan for you". Well, if he/she/it does have a plan, it's a pretty big and well-kept secret what that might be. But my luck extends - I don't feel depressed. There are days still when I am just stunned that this happened - that I got that close to death and came through as I did. I get cranky at the "God plan" crap (like he/she/it failed to make the plan for the 98%; that they were not 'worthy' of the plan? that it fell off God's to-do list that day? Nuts really).

But back to the birds of this posting title. I shared with my new e-friend that while I deeply empathize with her, I don't have to suffer the depression and symptoms of PTSD. I face and wrestle some with being pissed about the things I can't do and annoyed I have to cope with new fears, but that I also see far more birds and spectacular big skies than I ever saw before. Beautiful coastal birds and skies. Magnificent.

I rather doubt the bird population jumped on the date of my SCA, so my observation is now different. I don't think it's God's plan and I don't think my retinae somehow sharpened. While one cannot pass 24 hours every day doing nothing but feeling gratitude, I have moments of sheer joy at the birds and the big skies. (And yes, I got up during the middle of the night a month or two ago for a meteor shower...). I should probably be finding greater meaning in my new birds and skies, but today, I simply revel in the pleasure.

(And am off to find some nasty sounding meal-worms to entice bluebirds - wish me luck!)

Just gotta love Wilmington

Wilmington, NC that is, not Wilmington, DE, although I'm sure that one is lovable too.

First, not a Wilmington story, but this week, I graduated from cardiac rehab. A relief, but not for any deep reason. It just took so much time for what seems to be very little value. Ironically, the rehab days (3x per week) had become my lightest exercise days; I work far harder at my local gym. But I am an utterly compliant patient and they say go, so I go. At least I haven't had to pay a driver to take me the last month. (or as they say in the South, to "carry me" there.)

Back to Wilmington - there are so many things I love about my new home town. First, it is stunningly beautiful. The water, water, water and all that the water brings. Rivers, marshes, intracoastal waterway and of course, the ocean. And the people - it's a big small town. Very very supportive city, including businesses. There is a palpable sense of loyalty to local businesses. I've lived in Philadelphia, upstate NY, Michigan, Richmond, and I have never had that sense of support. Everywhere.

And then there is the fact that people just seem happier. I know that sounds silly or trite, but it's true - if not genuinely happier, then at least in much better moods than where I have lived before. And it's not a "Southern" thing; I got my introduction to Southern life a couple decades ago. I have been attributing it to the environmental beauty and /or the weather (horribly cold this week, but normally lovely). But last night, I met someone and we were chatting about how few native Wilmingtonians we encounter. And she said she thinks that is the reason for people's being in better moods. ..... Most people who live here have moved here from somewhere else - - and to her this means that everyone who lives here does so because we want to be here. We didn't get stuck here - we chose it.

For one or more of those reasons, I swear it is true; people are in better moods. Even with Sudden Cardiac Arrest and the other tumult since moving; count me among them. I am struck daily by the beauty of the surroundings and the Cardiac Arrest has made me see more, notice more, drink in more. Sometimes I think this would have been easier to wind through had I been in Richmond with a deeper support network - but God, I am so happy to be able to see and smell salt water every day. To see gulls, pelicans --- to feel sand, albeit not this week. I'm grateful to be here every single day.

And it's true - live near the beach and you get a LOT of visitors --- I'm awaiting the doorbell now - a Richmond friend coming for the weekend.