The nerves, they've got me.

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.

Good day/Bad day

There's good and bad days. Yesterday was a not so good day. JD was very tired and ended up sleeping most of the afternoon. I was cranky and tired as well so that never bodes well for a good evening. Nothing terribly exciting happened. No big fights or blowouts or anything, well you saw my posts yesterday just pretty down. General annoyance by everyone in the house, including the kids. Yesterday was the last day of school for the kids and field day for our oldest son. He was hot and sunburnt and just cranky. Which means our youngest was also cranky because his brother was bugging him. Anyway, just a blah day.

Today however has been a 180 degree shift. We started out the day with cardiac rehab, our first appointment. We met with a nurse and had a long chat about what caused JD'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.

They have classes every Wednesday on different topics like diet, exercise and anatomy of the heart. We will go to a few of those. I'm sure we'll go to the diet and nutrition one and I would like to go to the anatomy and physiology of the heart. I've been thorough anatomy and physiology 3 times and I just love learning about these things. We'll probably go through the stress management class as well, not that we have any stress, no not us!

We ran errands after that, we have some friends coming to stay with us from out of town for a month or so. I needed to get some cleaning supplies and various sundry items that had been put on the back burner while money was so tight here recently. JD did good through all of our running around, he had been getting fatigued pretty easily but luckily we made it through about 3 hours of errands and he still had enough energy to make us some lunch and watch a movie! Definitely much better than yesterday.

I'm so proud of all he is doing for himself! He's changed his whole life around. He used to eat lots of red meat, drink about 5 or 6 Mountain Dews and go through a little over half a pack of cigarettes. That was his existence, now we're trying out the different flavors of Crystal Light so we can find some we both agree on. He hasn't had a cigarette for a week and a half, same with Mt. Dew. He's really been a trooper. I'm so glad he's been so agreeable with all these changes, my stress level would probably be about 20 times higher if he weren't willing to at least try every day!

Death, she's a greedy bitch.

Almost every morning we watch the Today Show. Each Wednesday Willard Scott gets on and wishes centenarians Happy Birthday from Smucker's. It's funny how when you get a knock from death's door you look at this happy announcement a little differently.

Babies die before they're born. There's so many kids dying from awful cancers. People in the prime of their lives die from preventable diseases. We kill ourselves slowly with tobacco and McDonald's.

We all know eventually our lives are going to end. We want to do something with our lives to make some sort of impact in this small world of ours Personally, I've made peace with my death. I have not made peace with the death of my children or my husband. I can only hope it will be a long time until I see them, hopefully I will not have to see my children's or their children's.

I've been to a number of funerals, I've played many roles. I've been the nervous granddaughter playing "Amazing Grace" for her grandma on the violin. The emo teenager wishing she would've been nicer to her grandpa before he died. The daughter wishing she would've been braver in confronting the man she called daddy, making difficult decisions about whether or not to have a funeral for someone she really didn't like, but loved with her whole being. The daughter-in-law trying her best to hold it together for a grieving wife and mother who didn't know how she was going to make her next house payment. The friend who wished she would've done more, said more. The friend of a friend just there to hold a hand and offer a tissue. Death sucks, but we all have to do it sometime. I'd rather not do it with him, not for awhile anyway.

God or something like it.

JD and I were driving (me driving of course, four weeks is a long time) around yesterday picking up paper work and prescriptions, we drive by a church that has the wittiest billboards. Their board this week says "God has unlimited anytime minutes" to which JD says, "Yeah, but that bastard never has his phone on." We got into the discussion of God and Jesus. For the first time ever he said that he believed in a higher power. He tells me he understands God but that Jesus is a mystery, why should we worship some deranged guy from 2000 years ago anyway? My views of course differ. I think Jesus is more there for the symbolism, forgiveness is out there you just have to believe that you are worthy and ask for it. We don't worship Jesus we worship his creator and the thought of all He has done in our lives, every day we wake up and every day in the here after is because of Him.

I had a long chat last night with an old friend while waiting for exhaustion to hit. Somehow we got on the topic of religion and this conversation with JD came up. We discussed our thoughts on God and Jesus and the like. She had mentioned that she often felt like God had let her down, she has many health issues and has a hard time getting treatment where she is. My feelings are the exact opposite. I think God, or something like it, gives us challenges so that we have a reason to get up in the morning. Can you imagine a world where everything goes right for you? You get every promotion and your car always starts in the morning? You wake up and know that this day is going to be exactly like the day before. I think that would be really boring and frankly I can't imagine many people would survive that way. We all need motivation, we all need a reason for being. Where you find that is what makes you unique.

Just let us get to 50.

Now that all the back story is done, I get to actually talk about my issues. I can't imagine turning old without this man by my side. I've watched him grow from an 18 year old insecure teenager to a 30 year old proud father and husband. I'm so proud and thankful for every day I get to be his wife.

As I was sitting in the radiology waiting room, all I could think was "I just want to get a 50th birthday". At age 50 JD and I will have been together for 32 years, how's that for convenient. Our children, who are 8 and 10 now, will be well out of college and on their way to making their own lives, please Lord I hope. We would have some time together just us, we became parents at very young ages and that has shaped most of our relationship. It would be nice to get a few years to be together just the two of us.

Most importantly though, I want my kids to have their father. The father figure is so important and I think it's undervalued in today's society of single mothers. JD and I have split up in the past, irreconcilable differences as it were. Well we reconciled our differences and I believe it has made us stronger than ever in our relationship. While we were apart though, he became the dad I had always wished he would be. He took our sons out and taught them about things in nature and the importance of the life cycle. He told them he loved them and gave them hugs and just spent good quality dad time. Because he only got them a couple of days a week he finally realized the importance of that relationship. Our boys look up to him and strive to be as cool as him and I would hate to have that taken away from them as they go through puberty and become young men. Also I can't imagine wrangling those two on my own, they are a handful!

What did you do to yourself?

Sometimes you have to be threatened with death to realize the implications of your actions in life. What causes a 32 year old man to have a massive coronary. Well, there's a number of risk factors.

• smoking
• high blood pressure
• high blood cholesterol
• diabetes
• being overweight or obese
• physical inactivity

Smoking, check, for 16 years or so. High blood pressure, not that we know of but maybe. High blood cholesterol, little did we know his was astoundingly high. His total cholesterol was 230. His HDL, healthy cholesterol, was 20. His triglycerides were so high, 540, that the lab couldn't accurately calculate his LDL, lethal cholesterol, the estimate is around 104. Diabetes, no. Overweight or obese, not really 5'10" 200 lbs. Average height and weight for a 30 something man. Physical inactivity, kinda? He's very physical at work lifting tires and batteries, but at home plays a lot of video games and spends plenty of time at the computer.

That boils down to 3 out of 6. Dr. M told us it was a combination really. They think he may have some bad genes. That along with a whole lot of bad diet and smoking makes for a comfy stay in the ICU with a pump helping your heart out for 2 days. Smoking is bad kids, don't do it.

Not your average grocery list.*

Plavix, 75mg once per day in the am to keep blood flowing smoothly through the stent
Vasotec, 2.5mg once per day in the am to control blood pressure
Tricor, 145 mg once per day in the pm to help lower cholesterol
Lopressor, 25mg twice per day in the am and pm to control heart rate and blood pressure
Zocor, 20 mg once per day in the pm to help lower cholesterol and triglycerides
Aspirin, 325 mg once per day in the am to thin blood

Low cholesterol diet
Low fat diet
Low sodium diet

Activities as tolerated per cardiac rehab
Cardiac rehab 3 times per week for 12 weeks to build back up endurance and strength
No driving for 4 weeks

* Alternate title-Ways we're attempting to keep JD alive.

Warnings.

I asked him, did you have any symptoms that you can remember? The last couple weeks, were you more tired? Did your chest hurt at all? Were you ever out of breath? Did you have lots of indigestion? No, no, no he tells me.

In my warped mind I'm trying to remember, did he take more naps? Did he recently complain about his shoulders hurting (I say recently because he's a serial dislocator)? Did he complain about tummy troubles? I can't for the life of me remember anything out of the ordinary "I'm an old man, pity me" aches and pains of the normal work day. Is there anything I could have done? Why didn't I notice anything weird?

Fortunately for us, we had both scheduled a vacation starting the 17th and going through the 22nd to have some us time; just enjoy some quiet time together. Had I known where we'd get to spend this time together I'm not sure I would have scheduled it at all.

We've sprung this joint!

I called my mom right after they took him in for the angioplasty. She told me "No worries he'll be out in 25 minutes those things go so fast", oh if only. They spent two hours in the cath lab attempting to find and treat his blockage, by far the longest two hours of my life. He told me later that the female doctor (Dr. M) working on him could not find his blockage because it was at the base of the artery. She called in a colleague of hers (Dr. K) to assist, with both of them and lots of blood thinners and contrast medium they were able to clear and stent the blocked area.

Dr. K came out to speak with my mother-in-law and myself. He told us that he indeed had a massive heart attack, one he called a "widow maker" because of the location and extent (100%) of the blockage. He told me JD was a V8 working on 3 cylinders, a fitting metaphor since my husband works on cars for a living, meaning his heart was working at about 35-40% of capacity attempting to pump blood to his whole body. He told me I was very lucky that JD was so young and that he had gotten into the cath lab so quickly because they were able to diagnose and correct the blockage. He told me my husband should be dead. It's always nice to hear from a medical professional that your beloved should be dead. He then said we had a long road of recovery ahead of us. We won't know the full extent of his heart damage until 6 months out.

They put him on an aortic pump to assist his heart in pumping oxygenated blood to the rest of his body and give his muscle wall extra time to heal. To let his cells wake up and get some good blood after being deprived for so long. Upon discharge Dr. K told me he was up to about 4 cylinders with just some leaky valves which is quite a recovery in four days.

The day we left the hospital was a joyous day indeed. Discharge date was May 22nd, 2010, just four days after having a massive myocardial infarction. Two and a half of those days were in intensive care.