I'm a worrier, I was born that way. I come from a long line of worriers, I even gave birth to one myself. Our youngest son is in therapy to help with his ADD, after his second appointment his therapist comes out to us and says, "He has a lot of worries". Yeah, tell me about it. You can imagine, I'm sure, how I'm dealing with day to day issues. I take a lot of anxiety medicine.
Most nights I just lay awake and watch JD breathe. I did this before he got sick, but not for as long. I'd wait for his breathing to slow down and for him to start snoring. I'd thank God for another day we got to spend together and process everything else that happened in the day, all to the rhythm of his breathing. Then I could go to sleep. I am, of course, still thankful for everyday we get together and thank God often. However, the meaning behind watching him breathe has changed now. Instead of being thankful for him breathing, I'm thankful for each breath he gets to take. Our first night in the ICU was particularly awful. I felt like I was sitting there willing him to take his next breath, willing his heart to beat again. They were having problems getting his internal blood pressure monitor to work and the alarm would go off about every two minutes saying his blood pressure was too low. Three nurses were in there trying to figure out what was going on, he wasn't showing any symptoms of low blood pressure. There was one reading that was 72/50 and I lost it.
I've seen this blood pressure before on one of my father-in-law rounds in the hospital fighting cirrhosis and some random blood infection. He had come through lung cancer but his liver was failing. They had spoken with his wife and I about our wishes if they weren't able to bring him back, did we want to pursue a DNR? It took me right back to that spot, what decision would I make? What would he want, what was the right thing to do? We never got to that point. JD made it through that night, they got the monitor working and they got his blood pressure meds regulated so that it didn't go that low. Still it sticks with me, what if I have to make that choice?
What if, what if... My mother reads this blog and will probably tell me I can't live in the what if. I can't tell you how many nights my mom has spent up late with me discussing my what if's. It's genetics, mom, out of my control. I've actually worked pretty hard to not live in the what if's. Thousands of dollars of my mom's money spent on therapy later, I've developed some coping strategies, they're not working right now. So I take more anxiety medicine, it helps take the edge off. I can breathe, JD's breathing, the kids are breathing. We will make it through this day. One hour, one minute, one step, one moment, one breath at a time.
ff or gotten knocked around in transport. I told him I thought that was something we would have noticed in the store, however we were a bit distracted as it was Walmart on Saturday and we were just wasting time waiting for our prescriptions to be filled. No luck in the van though. He threw in the towel, finally defeated, and went about the long arduous process of reeling in a fishing line with no handle. Turns out it takes about 5 minutes to reel in your line when you don't have a handle, who knew? We packed it up and went back home, hardly an hour later. :(
D's heart attack and what we could do to prevent another one in future. She gave us a neat diagram of the heart and where JD's blockage was. I'll put it in here, you can click on it to make it bigger. The yellow mark at the top of the LAD is where his blockage was! Then he got to do some stretching and cardio exercises; treadmill, stationary bicycle, and the arm peddler. So now we go three times a week starting tomorrow and he gets to do 45 minutes of exercise while being monitored.
