A year after my dad died, I moved back home, well technically I moved to an apartment where my mom had just moved as well. It was right next door to where she worked (remember she doesn't drive) so it was easier for her to be closer to work. We still had our house, but we never lived there again. I continued to work weaving baskets, driving an hour everyday. On the 5th of October that year, (my dad's birthday) I didn't really feel like going in to work. I decided since I worked night shift, I'd stay up all night and randomly chat with people online. I was talking to this guy named Herman out in California when another person popped up and asked me a silly question about my profile. At first I thought he was weird, but then I started chatting to him and ended up chatting to him for hours that night. We then started emailing regularly and calling each other. Eventually we both sent videos to each other. After ten months of chatting, he flew over to meet me. I went to the airport by myself, really hoping that he wasn't a serial killer. Turns out he probably isn't one, either that or he's very slow. He stayed for nine days and it was wonderful. Then I decided I'd go see him. I'd never been on a plane before, but I got my passport and booked my tickets. Then September 11th happened and I thought for sure I'd chicken out, but less than a month later I was Sydney, Australia bound. Of course I'd picked a 20 hour flight for my very first time on a plane. People at home took bets on how long I'd be gone, whether I'd get to the airport in Texas and turn around and come back, or whether I'd make it the three months I was booked. Flying was AMAZING. I loved it. I made it there and stayed for six months instead of three. When I got home I found a new job doing transcription in a mental health office. I loved it! Six months later, my mystery man moved to America, four months later we were engaged, and three months after that we were married. I'm still pretty sure Trevor isn't a serial killer. ;) We bought our first home in Ohio and had Christmas there that year. My sister, Carla came to our house for Christmas and we watched some home videos and she made fun of how absolutely ridiculous Trevor and I can be. It was great. I had been singing in a band for a year prior to this and had decided after Christmas that it was time to leave. My last day with the band was to be March 20th. On the 29th of March in the evening my mother-in-law called, she'd had a "bad feeling" and wanted to call us. After we got off the phone with her, I thought about calling my sister as I hadn't talked to her for a couple of weeks. For whatever reason, I didn't do it, probably thinking my mother-in-law is full of shit and there's no need to go calling everyone in case her bad feeling about something turned out to be true. The next morning I got up and went down to the office to start work (I was now working from home doing the transcription). At exactly 8:32 a.m. the phone rang, on the other end was someone from my mom's office at work. I immediately got panicky thinking something was wrong with her, but then she went on to say that my sister's best friend had called and that that Carla's heart had stopped and the EMT's were working on her. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach with a sledgehammer, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think. I ran up the stairs yelling for Trevor to wake up and we drove to the dentist office to get my mom on the way to the hospital. The hospital was about 25 or 30 minutes drive and all the way I prayed that she would be okay, that her heart hadn't stopped, that if it had they'd got it going again. I remember saying out loud that everything was going to be okay, trying to calm my mom down. I was so sure we'd get to the hospital and Carla would be sitting up in a bed and apologize for scaring us all half to death. When we got there this nurse took us into a tiny room. I knew what that meant. I'd been in a room like this before. She was gone. We walked in and her best friend was sitting there and she confirmed what I already knew. My sister, the person whom I grew up with, and fought with, and told my secrets to, my 28-year-old sister was dead. My mom went outside, she couldn't stand to be in that little room. I asked Jackie (my sister's best friend) how it had happened and she said that Carla had called her out of breath and needed help and Jackie called an ambulance and then headed to her house. She sat there not being able to breathe while the EMT's rolled their eyes at her and told her she was hyperventilating and all she needed was a paper bag. She sat there scared wondering why they weren't helping her. She sat there not being able to breathe, until her heart stopped. The doctors said she had had a pulmonary embolism -- a blood clot in her lung. The funeral was hard. I just wanted to be alone to think, or cry, or both, but every time I'd try to get away, someone else would find me and come and talk to me. A week and a half after she died I was sitting down helping my mom make out thank you cards for the people who had sent flowers or food, and Jackie called. She had more information about how the EMT's had treated Carla. I felt shaky after that phone call and couldn't finish the cards. The next day Trevor took our dog for a walk and when he was gone I just started feeling weird. I can't really describe it any other way, just weird. When he got home I said I wanted to go get a cold drink from the shop down the road, water didn't sound good, I had to have Coke. On the way, all I could think of was how Jackie had mentioned that Carla said she had felt weird leading up to when she died. We went in to get the Coke out of the fountain, I took a drink and left it there and said "I've got to go to the hospital NOW". We drove to the ER and I told the doctor what had happened to her and how I felt really weird, so he did a blood test that will tell you if you have a clot or not. It came back I didn't and he gave me a prescription for some dizzy pills. I felt a lot better after I left. A few evenings later my mom was over at our house to finish up the thank you cards, as I sat down to do them I started feeling "funny" again. I was getting really dizzy and hot, my arms felt like they were on fire. I immediately jumped up and told Trevor and my mom that I needed to go to the ER, that something was terribly wrong with me. We got there and my heart was pounding so hard that when they put those little EKG stickers on me, I could feel them pulsating like they were jumping off of me. They gave me some Ativan to calm me down and then took me for a CT Scan. I had the same doctor that I had had a few days before and he wanted to just double check that there was nothing obvious. I calmed down after that, and then he came into the room and said "It's a blood clot in your lung". That was it. The pivotal moment. They kept me there for a week, doing every test they could think of. Every time someone would come into my room my heart rate would sky rocket, not just doctors, friends as well....everyone but Trevor and my mom. The blood doctor came in to talk to me and said I'd have to be on blood thinners for the rest of my life and I'd probably not be able to have children. I was on a full information overload. My sister had died of the same thing two weeks before, and now they're telling me I can't have children? At the end of that week, after exhausting every other test, including a drug test, they did another CT Scan. There was nothing there. They told me the first one was a "shadow on the scan". They kept me there for a week, all the while I"m on bed rest afraid to move a muscle for fear that this clot is going to move and kill me, and all th while there was absolutely nothing physically wrong with me. Before they released me, I asked the doctor, "Could this be an anxiety thing?" I knew about anxiety, I worked in a mental health clinic, I wanted him to say yes. I wanted that to be the end of it, but he said "I don't like to say things are anxiety and the symptoms don't really fit". That started the thinking, of "if it's not anxiety, what is it?" I left the hospital and my heart rate would just randomly go up. I used to make Trevor take me to the hospital parking lot and play cards with me until I felt calm enough to go home. We were there outside that ER nightly for months. I couldn't drive anymore. He couldn't go anywhere without me or I would panic. I remember one time he had to go to an immigration interview by himself and I was home alone. I panicked as soon as his car was out of site. I had all of those feelings I had had in the hospital, so I called my mom and drove (very uncomfortably) to pick her up and bring her to my house. I could not be alone. I couldn't even think about being alone without feeling all of those scary body feelings -- dizziness, fast heart beat, being out of breath, feeling spacey. But still, I had no idea what was wrong with me. The doctor had said it didn't "fit" in with anxiety and so I certainly must have something wrong with my heart, or a brain tumor, or ovarian cancer, or.....the list went on. I was now a hypochondriac, analyzing every body symptom and making it into a new disease, something, anything to explain why I felt like this. I used to have Trevor check my pulse constantly. He had to say it was "real good" or I'd panic. If he said it was a little bit high, I would panic. I couldn't check it myself because as soon as I'd try, my heart rate would go up. One of my favorite things used to be going for drives, I didn't really like driving, but I loved riding in the car. Trevor and I used to go for drives in the country to try to get lost before the panic attacks started. After that, I was afraid to go very far from a hospital. As we drove, I'd obsess about "what if" this and "what if" that and if we would go into places, I'd plan my escape route. Suddenly, everything in my life revolved around being able to get to the hospital if I needed to. On the same token, I was afraid to actually go in the hospital because "what if they said I have a blood clot or heart condition and they're wrong", or even worse "what if they're right this time?" I couldn't even go to the grocery store. I'd get in there and the fluorescent lights were too bright, looking at things on the shelves made me feel dizzy, and with every step I'd take toward those last aisles farthest away from the door, I was feeling more out of control -- "what if I pass out?" "What if I have a heart attack?" "What if it wasn't a shadow on the scan and I really do have a blood clot?" And so it went like that for months. Trevor would go and do the shopping, but I had to come too, and sit the car. If he took too long, I'd start to panic. We started reading things online about anxiety and panic attacks and found that I had every symptom, but in the back of my mind I heard that doctor say that my symptoms didn't "fit" with anxiety. I second guessed everything I read, everything I heard, everything I did. I couldn't exercise, even going for a walk or walking up stairs was an impossible task -- back then it was because it made my heart rate go up, which made me think of that first panic attack that sent me to the ER, and I was also afraid of having a heart attack like my dad did.
This is where I'll leave it for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment