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.

Skies and Birthdays

The sky. The sky is a gift. Tonight, it is one of those very very black skies offset with grey-ish white whispy clouds that partially obscure a brilliantly white not-full moon. That's the best description I can come up with and it falls so far short that it's embarrassing.

One day this week, I spent an early evening out on the friend's boat. We went out at around 4 and got back in around 9 - after dark. No swimming that day, just a slow, lazy cruise. Another perfect day. Your breath is taken away at each turn; ocean breakers in the distance, pristine marsh grasses, dolphins playing nearby -- just a magnificent day. And as we eventually turned for home, the sky... It was a mixed sky - some clouds, some sun and the colors gradually turned brilliant - so many shades of fierce red and pink and white slowly, slowly turning to black.

We both were transfixed by it - without comment for the longest time. Finally I said that it was one of those skies that it was wasteful to attempt to photograph - no picture ever could get it. An almost trite thought, admittedly.

I have just one word for a day like that - gratitude. Grateful for my friend, for his boat and for those skies. Grateful to be here - first to "be" after a year and also to be "here" in this spectacular place. And again, so grateful for my friend.

PS. Skippy's birthday is past. Tomorrow is old-what's-'is-name's birthday (aka the Ex). This will be, I think, the first time in 27 years that I will let it pass un-marked. No card, no call, no email. Before, even in our separated/divorced years, I always contacted him; I dreaded the idea that he would get no cards or no calls. This year, at long last, it just doesn't matter to me.
I believe the excision/exorcism is complete.

Whew - first anniversary is over

So glad that the first anniversary of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is in the rear view mirror; it has been weighing on my mind for weeks now. I kept waiting to feel celebratory and never did. Anxious, but never did get in a mood anyone would call celebratory.

I'm not a brooder by nature, but I found myself in weeks past brooding on the lack of cause and effect, the lack of definitive signs and symptoms and the UTTER lack of data on liklihood of recurrence. But finally, let it go.

Now, I realize that for me, for as many of these anniversaries that I am fortunate enough to have --- for me, it will celebrating a year without an event. A cardiac event to be specific. THAT is cause for celebration, to be sure.

One great aspect about the SCA anxiety is that I am far less anxious about other things. Took a boat out over the weekend with my visiting sister, who has more boating skill than I do (very low bar), but I think is accustomed to deeper water than is in our Intracoastal Waterway. She got progressively MORE concerned about hitting sandbars. Me, not so much. I wanted to explore the little fingers, admittedly at very slow speed so that any hit to a sandbar would not be apocalyptic. I mean, we HAD a depth finder.

But I relented. Relaxed and enjoyed the ride on a spectacular coastal day.

glad the year is over. Uneventfully over.

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.

Sonny Jurgensen

I must be the only person on earth still writing or thinking about Sonny. Is there a Sonny Jurgensen fan club?

Do you know that here in Wilmington NC there is a Jurgensen Field? Well, truth be told, it is the Jurgensen/Gabriel Field, but still....

Next time someone asks me why I moved here, I am going to say it was because of Sonny.

Can I Actually Date?

The one-year anniversary of SCA- Sudden Cardiac Arrest (9/5/09) is around the corner. That also marks around a year since the final demise of my nearly 30-year relationship with the ex. Ex husband. Totally ex. Tom, or as a friend refers to him -- "Old what's his name". I laughed when I first heard that sweetly dis-empowering reference last October, and it still makes me laugh today. It was a rocky late summer and fall last year, to be sure. Relationship ending, heart stopping without warning, enter Skippy the defibrillator stage left.

So here I sit, one year later. Overwhelmingly grateful to be here - to be alive, to be relatively undamaged by the SCA, to be in my home, to be among friends, to know I am cared about, to be so close to the water. To be just here.

So thoughts turn to couple-hood, or couple-ness, to love, to companion, to partner, to that dreaded word "dating". A ritual designed for kids. I am not quite there, but in the words of my very favorite 'southernism' - I am thinking about fixin' to get ready to....argh.... date.
I know I am getting there - I have pretty much stopped thinking of Hatred and old what's his name in the same breath - emotional health returns slowly in these parts.

Just regular, ordinary dating as an adult is bad enough, but now - now, there is a whole new level of baggage to be introduced - Skippy the defibrillator and how it/he arrived.
On what date do we cough that up? Can you imagine the scenario: Oh, by the way, first-date-man-I-just-met -- my heart has taken to stopping, but it's really OK because I have this tiny little set of paddles in my chest wall, wired with leads into my heart with a little tiny dude ready to yell "clear" and flip the switch - as needed. So not to worry.

Clearly not date number one. Isn't Date One reserved for really benign pseudo-information? Favorite color? Do you read? Do you like soup? Is that real hair?

So not Date One ---- but just as clearly sometime before THAT date - After all, there is a physical presence to Skippy that will be apparent.
Oh God. Maybe the Mormons have it right; I don't think the fundamentalist women ever really take off the "sacred undergarment". Is it too late for me to convert? I really think this may be a valid reason to convert.

One of the many positive things that come after surviving SCA (like - those lottery odds start to look better) --- you can get through anything. For now, I am just going to assume that will include dating.
OH God. Dating.

P.S. a new favorite New Yorker cartoon has a woman saying "To get through this, I've had to rely on an inner strength I never knew I had --- in the medicine cabinet"

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.