The Fish Pond

Dear to My Heart (And Yours)

Today marks the beginning of American Heart Month, and is also National Wear Red Day. For me, it isn't enough to wear red for one day, so for the month of February, The Fish Pond will be wearing red, too.

As anyone who has perused my archives knows, my mother died at age 37, from a heart attack. Thirty-seven. That's much too young by anybody's standard. My sister and I were motherless at the ages of 15 and 12. That's too young, too.

We thought heart disease was an old person's disease. We learned otherwise, the hard way. We learned the hard way that heart disease is the number one killer in this country. Number one. And we also learned that heart disease is the number one killer of women, not just men. We learned that no matter how young you are, you need to take care of your heart.

This month, think about your heart. Think about the people that are dear to yours. Learn the warning signs of heart attack and stroke. Encourage your legislators to support legislation to fund heart health initiatives. Get involved in causes to further education and awareness about heart disease. Get some exercise. Eat some vegetables that aren't deep fried. If you are able to, donate to the American Heart Association.

Take care of yourself, because your heart is important.

About Last Night...

Sorry, the skeevy guy will have to wait, because my physiology needs an ass-kicking.

I know I've scrawled a bit here before about a heart condition I have.  It is fairly benign as far as heart conditions go, more of an annoyance than a threat most of the time.  It is called paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia, or PSVT for short.  As you can see from the link, it's basically a rapid heartbeat for no apparent reason that comes on randomly, although it can be associated with stress or fatigue.  Along with it I tend to have a fast normal sinus rhythm, around 115 or so, so I take medication to keep it down to a dull roar, around 85 bpm or so.  I also avoid caffeine (don't have any except chocolate), cold medicines, and anything else that is a nervous system stimulant.  Most of the time, when I have what I call an episode, it lasts for at most a few minutes, maybe a few seconds.  It is fairly exhausting when they happen, but really not a big deal anymore (they were a big deal when they first happened as they scared the piss out of me and I was misdiagnosed as having panic attacks for a long time - it took years to get a proper diagnosis).

Which brings us to last night.  BigDaddyFish didn't get home from work 2 nights ago til midnight, and I went to bed last night around 11 ish or so, about normal for me.  I was TIRED.  I woke up around 1 am, in a full PSVT episode - heart racing and pounding, dizzy and lightheaded.  I quickly tried to bear down and push like a bowel movement (or pushing a baby out, for that matter) to get it to stop, but it didn't work.  I asked BDF to bring me a glass of ice water; most of the time chugging a glass of ice water is enough to make it stop.  (What that actually does is make your heart skip a beat, which then lets the heart reset itself and resume a normal rhythm.  It is the same effect that the medicines they give you in the hospital do - but in the hospital, it stops your heart for about a second.  Which.  Feels.  Like.  A.  Lifetime.  if you ever need it done - you're conscious when it happens.)  That didn't work.  I started to get a litle panicky, because although for me I could sit there all night like that (unpleasant, but doable), I had no idea what effect it would have on the baby.  And the baby wasn't moving.  Part of the dizziness is caused by the heart beating too fast to allow the chambers to fill up properly, so a slight amount of decreased oxygen is normal, and I didn't know if the baby was getting enough.  Me getting panicky caused BDF to get mad at me (like that helps), and I will spare the details but it caused a huge fight, all the while my heart is trying to leave my chest.  Fun!

BDF also got mad because he "couldn't figure out how I was snoring and making those damn noises at the same time."  Apparently I was trying to bear down to convert the episode while I was still asleep.  Good to know that my body was trying to take care of me even as it was malfunctioning.  BDF thought I was faking being asleep, though.  He kept asking questions, and I kept telling him "I DON'T KNOW - I WAS ASLEEP!!"  I guess I finally convinced him after I repeated myself 80 thousand times.

Finally, around 2 am as I was preparing to go to the ER, I gave the old ice water one more chance, and because I threatened my goofy heart with the ER, it worked.  I then drank some juice, and within 10 minutes Guppy was moving around like his normal active self.  So I went back to bed, since I already knew I had an appointment with the OB this morning.

BigDaddyFish apologized.

I had my old-fart test today, and the baby and I are just fine.  The OB said if I have another PSVT episode that lasts for around 3 hours, call the cardiologist.  He'll just say talk to the OB.  If it happens again, I'll make them call each other and fight it out, while I figure out how to make the baby come out.

My section is going to be scheduled the week of November 13, due to Little Man's issues at birth.  While the particular OB I saw today wasn't thrilled (and actually thinks I'm crazy) because he is worried about me going into labor and he doesn't want me to, he agreed to do the section on my terms.  Which is good, cause I'm pushy that way. 

So now we just wait.

And as a total non-sequitur, McDonald's just gave me a spoon --- to eat my salad.  With grilled chicken.  BigDaddyFish says I should cut slits in it to make a spork.

For my Mom

August 2, 1985 was a day a whole like today, except I don't remember it being so hot.  My sister and I went to a recreation department camp, where they had 2-week sessions, just day camp, but on the second Thursday of the session camp had a sleep over.  I was a counselor in training by then, and I remember staying up all night long with a group of younger campers to help out.  My mom picked up my sister and I from the bus stop that morning.  Friday was always her cleaning day, the day where she scrubbed the house from top to bottom.  She said she was feeling tired, and asked for my sister and I to help with the house.  I was 15, a horrid age anyway for a girl and her relationship with her mom, and I HATED to clean house (not much changed there), and I was tired and cranky anyway, so I "resisted," and we had a huge fight.

I told her I hated her.  She made me clean anyway.

She was real tired, said she'd been up with my dad the night before (of this I have no doubt - they didn't have too many kid-free nights, and liked to stay up and drink a lot of wine on the weekends, anyway), so she went upstairs to take a nap in the afternoon.  My grandmother came over, because my grandfather was out of town, and our family always ate out for dinner on Friday nights, to give my mom a break.  My dad got home about oh, 5:15 or so.  He went in to wake my mom up, and soon came out of the room and called down for my grandmother to come up, but for us kids to stay downstairs. 

An ambulance arrived about 15 minutes later.  I had to run up the stairs to grab the dog, who was attacking the paramedics who came to help my mom.  He didn't understand they were trying to help her.  That's how I found out something was wrong.

My mom was blue.  They pulled her off the bed to get her on a hard surface to resume the CPR that my dad and grandmother inexpertly started on her (it wasn't doing any good since the mattress would give with each chest compression).

Mom was loaded in the ambulance, and driven away.

She never came home.  My dad came home a couple of hours later.  He took my sister and I in the bedroom, and told us that our mother was gone.  My sister wailed and punched the wall.  I was just in shock.

She was 37 years old. 

They did an autopsy.  She died of a heart attack.  For years, my father insisted that she had arteriosclerosis, not ATHerosclerosis, and that her death had nothing to do with cholesterol and such.  More than 14 years later, I finally got a copy of her death certificate for myself when I started having heart-related problems.  One of her coronary arteries was 90% blocked, and she got a blood clot in her aorta.  She died peacefully in her sleep, of old-fashioned, run-of-the-mill, clogged arteries.

I internalized my grief; I was the oldest, and my dad fell apart, so I had to step up and make sure we kept running as a household.  I called people to notify them.  I wrote thank you notes after the funeral.  I kept this up for all of high school and much of college, when I started to have completely unrelated issues, and finally got the therapy and help I needed to process my grief.  I had told her I hated her.  I had previously had thoughts of her "going away," though usually through divorce and not death.  I thought I had done this to her.  I hated that she died thinking I hated her.  My therapist, and my father, assured me that she knew I didn't hate her.  I wasn't so sure then.

Now, I am a mother.  I understand.

Now, I miss her more than I ever did in the first 10 years after she died.  Now, I have kids, and wish she could know them, too.  I know how much she would have loved them, and they her.  I hate that they are missing one of their grandparents, and in fact, the only grandparent that could have nurtured them like I do.  Now, I am a grown woman, and I wish I knew what my mom was like as a woman, and not as my mother.  It was too painful for anyone who knew her to keep in touch, and my father's memory isn't reliable, not that he really would have known a lot of the things I want to know about her, anyway.  What made her stay with my dad despite his general crankiness and his mental illness?  How did she feel about staying home?  What other ambitions in life did she have besides raising my sister and me?  How did she cope with the isolation of being a SAHM in a careerist world?  What was I like as a baby?  Why didn't she stop smoking?  Why did she drink so much?  What were her pregnancies like?  What was her favorite food?

I hope that wherever she is now, she knows that I did, in fact, love her.  I love her still.  I miss her.  I hope she is proud of the woman I've become, of who I try to be.

I am now 36 years old.  My mom has been gone 21 of those years.

I love you, Mommy.