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6 de Marzo 2008
Memoir - Chapter 10: Three incidents in February
Lots has happened in the last 4 weeks. Lots of items that I haven’t really thought through or confronted emotionally. This will be an accounting of the facts and a more general introduction to emotional themes. I really need to come back to some of these themes and reflect on them more deeply.
1. February 6: A Wednesday morning. I got up at 5:45 a.m. and rode to work. It was really cold, but a great ride. I jumped back on my bike that evening and started hammering home. I had been on the bike 5 minutes and was riding down McCallie avenue when I felt the buzzing faintness, blurred vision and dizziness that was all too familiar. I got off the street as soon as I could. And there on the sidewalk the defibrillator shocked me 3 times. I called Marialice and she came to get me. We ate dinner and then went to the ER. By the time she arrived in the car I was feeling fine.
I met with Dr Salerno that week and he suggested that the incidents I have had are connected with the beginning of exercise. The heart works very hard at the beginning of exercise, before the blood system gets warmed up and is ready to send more volume to the muscles. It seems that this initial period is where I have problems. So the plan is to warm up more carefully, and to take some more intensive adrenaline blockers ½ hour before exercise to control heart rate in that risk period.
As a result of Dr Salerno’s recommendation and my understanding of the emotional impact on Marialice, I decided after that to stop riding to work on McCallie avenue. I have not yet worked through the emotional impact of this decision, but it’s the end of something that has defined me for the last 5 years.
2. February 15: I read about a Friday lunch ride up Suck Creek Mountain. This seemed like a great first ride back. It was with good friends who knew my condition, and it would be a chance to test the “warm up plan”. Well I didn’t get a chance to follow the plan. The deck seemed stacked against me. I left the more aggressive medication in the truck and so couldn’t take it ½ hour before my planned exercise. I got several last minute phone calls and so wasn’t able to leave the office with enough time to get changed, and warmed up at the Y before we rode out. And then I rushed out of the office building and up the stairs into the parking garage. As I walked back to my truck, I could tell I was breathing hard (to soon to fast) and by the time I got to my truck the dizzy, sweaty feeling returned. I had driven 15 feet when the defibrillator shocked me. I pulled into the nearest parking spot, called Marialice and walked slowly back into the office.
I felt stupid for not being able to follow the plan, for not doing the things I knew would be required to avoid the heart problem. I knew the plan, but couldn’t follow it.
I also felt really angry at the limitations this reality seem to impose. Can’t I fly up 2 flights of stairs on a whim? Will I be able to chase down my kids if I need to? Can I not be the fairly strong, active person I have always been? I started taking the elevator at work more consistently, changing yet another item of fairly significant personal identity. Even though I worked on the 5th floor, I always took the stairs. Now, even two flights of stairs seems too much – I take the elevator.
I haven’t gotten back on the bike since that day. 3 weeks. That is a long time for me…
3. February 19: On my way to work in my truck I was overcome with a sense of dizzy congestion, sweaty palms, short breath, warmth around the defibrillator. I started to panic, expecting to get shocked. I didn’t and it passed. I wondered whether I should just go to the ER, but made it to work and walked slowly into the office. But once I had been at my desk for 15 minutes it returned. I asked Melanie Roberts to walk with my to the medical facility. They could find nothing wrong with me, but recognized the reaction I was having. I was pale, shaking, sweaty. We called the ambulance, as no-one could face the risk of going by myself. I had to call Marialice again. She cried.
At the ER the waves of dizziness increased, and became worse. They grew into a buzzing feeling in my chest and abdomen, a difficulty speaking and finally, a visual aura that I normally associate with a migraine. Marialice tells me that during this time I was as intense as she has ever seen me, trying to communicate every symptom and feeling, almost as if no one believed what was going on.
The doctors could not find any source of problem. My heart was running fine, except for its normal funky thumping (Premature ventricular contraction). The defibrillator had not done anything (even the pacing function that I can’t detect). They gave me an anti-nausea / migraine shot and that seemed to solve all the problems. But we still don’t know what happened.
Marialice told me later that day that she wondered whether it was a panic attack. That was hard to hear because it made me doubt my own sanity. I haven’t tried to worry too much about the implications. But it is again evidence of weakness, of a lack of physical control over my own situation. Just as I have known I am powerless to know and control my emotions, I am now feeling powerless to know and control my body. Lord help me.
The experience has given me a new sense of self awareness, knowledge of when to simply take a deep breath and move on, and when to be more concerned. Its been pretty regular since then to feel a sudden change, and jump thinking its my heart – jump right into a panic, almost right into the sense that I am being shocked. I’m starting to be able to recognize those moments and breathe through them, rather than let them overwhelm me. Again though – it feels like I can’t trust my body, or maybe my mind.
Again we went to the doctors, and again they discussed more radical treatment – expanded medication, riskier surgery, other diseases that may be causing this. More uncertainty, more questions of control.
A theme throughout this is losing control. I feel like I'm losing the sense we all want of being able to control my own fate. I am not able to be and do what I want. I fight that new reality with anger and insolence. But it is a reality.
Posted by rob at 10:33 PM | TrackBack
Memoir - Chapter 9: A theme from scripture
Note: This is part of a larger series. Start here to read the whole thing.
Several weeks ago on Sunday I was struck with amazing force by the scriptures. with messages that hit me hard.
In the gospel of Mark the story is told of Jesus and his disciples on an ocean crossing:
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"
I heard this in a Sunday School class, and it struck me how completely I identified with the disciples. Christ has called me to a path, and along that path has brought this great storm into my life. I am in the midst of a storm and I really need Jesus to show up. I need to see the clarity of the quiet sky on the horizon behind the storm, but Jesus is asleep on a pillow in the stern. Silent, Absent, Un-voicing. And so I cry out against him, accusing, recriminating: “Don’t you care about me?” or maybe truer “I don’t feel you care for me, you almost kill me and then you don’t do anything..” That is where I am.
After calming the storm, Jesus turns to his disciples and asks why they fear, whether they still have faith. These are pretty amazing and difficult questions. In the face of death, rocked by a storm... fear.... faith? It seems so very normal to be consumed by fear and have not faith. But I think what Jesus is getting at in that comment is that in a storm our call needs to be “help me in this moment of need!”
What keeps me in anger rather than breaking down in need. Is it maybe because there is not enough fear? Am I rightfully aware of the fear in my heart toward what might lie ahead, or is my fear aroused when I face the truth of my savior? When everything in my heart wants to cower in fear, or shutter itself in isolation I am being asked about my faith, about my willingness to step out in trust, asking for help. I fear that! What if nothing happens. I fear that.
So I continue identified in my storm, identified in my angry recriminations, conscious of my faithless fear, asking God to help me believe, asking for an end to my unbelief.
Posted by rob at 10:26 PM | TrackBack