Heartbroken, literally.

A recent echogram done on Edwin's heart revealed that his heart is weak due to some muscles at the base and back wall dying at the time of the heart attack three months ago. Not the news I was expecting to hear. The way I saw it, his heart had a blockage. They unblocked it and put stents in it to prevent it from blocking again. Surely, his heart would have gone back to its normal state. Simple. But it isn't so. The cardiologist likened it to a car with 6 cylinders. Edwin's got 4 left but the heart is still working. "But it's not that bad", he went on saying. "Edwin can still do pretty much everything except perhaps run up and down the hill. Not much you can do about it but the medication and diet should help. I'll see you in 6 months time for another echogram." I must admit, I resented the doctor for these findings. It wasn't his fault but I resented him anyway. Maybe it wasn't so much for what he said but how he said it. I thought he broke the news to us rather casually and seemed to have treated the situation so lightly when he could have been more compassionate and sympathetic. I fired questions at him , minding my manners, but deep inside I was screaming at him saying "This may be an everyday thing for you to say to countless patients but it certainly isn't an everyday thing for me to hear about my husband so perhaps you can be a little more sensitive than that!" Well, actually, he wasn't that bad. I guess I was just vulnerable then. Edwin and I left and went our separate ways to attend to what suddenly became insignificant at that moment in time, our jobs. Work that day presented unnecessary stress, the last thing I needed while I processed the news that saddened and angered me. I lost it that day. In any case, the job that I expected to get done, got done, my way. I wish it was the same for the state of Edwin's health.

An appointment with our GP a few days later helped me to be more accepting of the situation. She was, thankfully, more detailed in her explanation; was more open to all questions; she paced the conversation at a speed where Edwin and I could digest all information; and she put things into perspective. If I remember right, I think she said that it takes 3 hours from the start of the attack for the heart muscles to start dying. And once the heart muscles are dead, that's it, they can't regenerate. Unfortunately for Edwin, his heart attack didn't present the easily recognizable symptoms like chest pains and shortness of breath. Looking back, we now realize that his heart had struggled for days, from Tuesday when I first noted he looked unusually exhausted to Thursday when he first felt the heaviness in his left arm for 15 minutes to Saturday when that feeling of heaviness came back and progressed into cold sweat and chest pains until the stent procedure. For every new information our GP gave us, I threw back a million questions, which she patiently answered. Bless her. She must have seen how I desperately needed the logic behind it all in order to cope. In the end, she had to use the it-could-have-been-worse line which, for two seconds, I thought was inappropriate but it had to be said because nothing was going to stop my line of questioning.

Whether I'm coping well or not is another story. I'd like to think I'm okay with it and I say I'm okay with it and I know I can be and will be okay with it but in truth, I am tensed and furious and immobilized and disorganized and agitated and troubled and sad and I am so needing order, a laugh, a break, a run, a clutter-free apartment, an idle moment, an idle mind, a life.