Tag Archives: Life

The Long Road

Posted in Misguided Musings by

I already had the title to this post in my head before I even sat down to write it. I already had a few sentences rolling around in my brain before I took up my pen to my journal. I had words like ‘shock’ and ‘dismay’ and ‘the universe sucks, sometimes’. All the while, the world continued to spin and mine had hit a mountainous rock and bumped into a ditch with water seeping into my socks.

Hubby had a heart attack.

It was a shock. That’s what everyone who has experienced this says, isn’t it? What a shock! Not ever something you can predict or say is going to happen, like a car hitting a tree for no reason or a person falling over her own feet or your face suddenly slamming into a brick wall you didn’t see in front of you (I know from experience) …it just happens.

And then, in that moment you have to deal. Deal with doctors and emergency rooms and blood tests and medications you have never heard of before, all in hours of hearing the words “my chest hurts”. It’s overwhelming and terrifying and, pardon the pun, heart wrenching. Your guts hurt, your mind reels and you don’t know what to do first. Should I call someone? Did I turn the lights off in the truck when we parked? Are the kids at work or school? What the hell is my husband doing connected to all these wires? When did we suddenly become a statistic? Today. Today we did.

A heart attack?! Him?!  

They sprayed nitro glycerin under his tongue. They took his blood pressure that many times he looked like they were blowing up a tire around his arm. They took his blood. They gave him pills. Baby aspirins. Then needles in the guts. Then more pills. They spoke reassuringly but always with the caveat, ‘you were lucky’. LUCKY?!  

Not feeling the luck right now, thanks.

The hardest part was returning home without him. Telling the kids that their father had a heart attack but he was ‘okay’. There were fearful tears, some questions and then son with the biology text book assertions of how he knew exactly what happened and rattled off the technical medical terms that remain in my mind as ‘blah blah cardiac blah blah’. It somehow comforted him to know exactly how it happened and the physiology behind it, because that’s how his brain works. I let him go on.  

Days in the Cardiac Care Unit with amazing nurses whose knowledge about the heart and what happens next and which tests will be done, were invaluable and alarmingly accurate. The Cardiologists were professional and kind and repeated the ‘lucky man’ phrase. After the dye test and they put in the stainless steel stent that ‘fixed him’ and he was proclaimed good as new, we found out why he was ‘lucky’. A 95% blockage in one of the main arteries; had he wasted any time getting to the hospital, he would not have been here. At all.  

Huh. Lucky man.

Lucky I was home, lucky he hadn’t taken a nap, lucky he had taken that year before to lose the weight and eat healthy, lucky he had gone to the hospital when he did….it goes on.

Luck. Not chalking it up to luck, sorry. Some missteps led to some common sense that led us to the hospital. Nothing to do with luck.  

The universe still sucks, but at least it left the door open a tad for us to jump on through if we so chose.

Genetics. That’s the term that was flying around his room. What your father went through, you will inherit. You did everything right, but you can’t change where you come from.  

But, it was a blow. It was a blow to our ego. It was a blow to everything we had been believing in. We are still young. We are doing things right. Eating well, exercising all the damn time. What the actual fuck, life?! You tricked us. Not fair.    

Then the denial. That was evident from the second we walked into the hospital. This is silly. The pain is gone. Let’s not waste their time. All words he had said. Then when the words had been spoken and they laid it out to him, it still took four days for it to resonate as reality.

A heart attack.  

He returned home with questions and trepidation and a mountain of meds that we had never had to deal with before. Every time I handed him a pill it was ‘what’s this one for?’ and ‘what’s this one called, again?’ It was confusing and scary. I called my ‘hood nurse for insight and reminders and medication guidance and I felt ashamed I had not remembered everything I thought I should have in the hospital, but then again how could I? I’m a mere mortal.  

Now we question every little ache and every little move as a possible follow up attack. Is this another one? Is it happening again? Are we doing something wrong? Are the medications not working? WHAT IS GOING ON?!  

We don’t know.

How are we supposed to?

Moving forward, we resolve to be positive and I’m sure he doesn’t tell me everything because he doesn’t want me to worry, and of course, vice versa. Stress causes damage to the heart. No stress=no damage. At least, in my mind. But is there such a thing as no stress?

I don’t think that’s possible when one is in the midst of raising three child-adults, and there’s uni and work and groceries and running a household and dealing in real life.  

Maybe it should be about how to handle stress. We exercise and go for our walks and try to live a healthy balanced life. We take things hour by hour and what happened, happened. We can’t change that. Move on and move up.

This heart attack didn’t just happen to him. It happened to US.

We are dealing together. It’s a long road and we are embarking on this journey as a team. There may be t-shirts in the making. And team logos. And banners.

Because nothing says team like a good logo!
            

        TEAM


                     HUBBY

 

 And taking a punch for your teammate.    

That’s all we know, now.  

Take care of each other…

https://www.heartandstroke.ca/heart/emergency-signs

 

 

 

 

Emergent Truth….It Really Has Nothing to Do With This Post, But I Like the Phrase So I’m Using It, Dammit.

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With the changing seasons, I like to review and take stock in what I’ve accomplished or completely fucked up during the past few months, just so I can kick myself or congratulate myself…depending upon, of course, the previous months’ activities. So far, in my list that I have drawn up in my head, I have both accomplished a few things and totally created an abyss of crap, so really…I can pat myself on the back while simultaneously kicking myself in the ass. Awesome.  

Ugh.

Physically, I’ve done well. Hubby and I have completely overhauled our eating habits and done away with processed foods and added sugar. We still have our days where we eat crap, but they are few and far between. We’ve both lost between 20-25 pounds each and walk around the lake a few times a week now that the weather is cooperating. I’m still going to bootcamp 3 days a week and have added a bit of running a couple of days just to see if my 95 year-old hip can take it. So far, it’s not complaining too much. Most days I can even walk straight! Yay! I’ve noticed I can lift heavier weights, do better push-ups and not fall down into a complete mess when doing a box jump. All improvements. I still can’t do chin-ups, pull-ups, and walk on ice without falling or sliding under cars, but one can’t expect to do it all…right?  


With age, comes tests and more tests to make sure you’re in tip top working condition. I sound like a mechanic looking under the hood of a car, but that’s how it feels. Bloodwork, xrays, ultrasounds, MRI’s, scan this, test that…ugh, it gets exhausting. Some of these ‘tests’ are invasive and overly tactile. I had an ‘internal ultrasound’ yesterday that I was NOT PREPARED FOR. The woman technician was trying to be really nice and understanding, but already admitted that she had not had one done herself , but WAS TOLD IT WASN’T THAT BAD. In response, I very sweetly said ‘oh, okay’ but my head was screaming WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK LADY, I’M NOT HAVING THAT WAND STUCK UP MY HOO-HA SO YOU CAN TAKE PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE OF WHATEVER IT IS YOU NEED PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE FOR! GEEZ, AT LEAST BUY ME DINNER FIRST. HEY, IF I SEE THESE PICS ON FACEBOOK SOMEONE IS GOING TO PAY! That was in my head. The whole time. Not kidding. Then she was pointing out how she saw my ovaries “oh, there’s the right one. It was a bit hard to see. *giggle*” (me: * fuck off* I get a bit sweary WHERE THERE’S A GLOWING WAND INSIDE MY HOO-HA AND SOMEONE IS LAUGHING AT ME) Then, I hear her sweetly saying “okay, now just a bit of pressure” and you know when someone says ‘pressure’ they mean ‘I’m pushing as hard as I can to get a good look at that unmentionable stuff that no one talks about so don’t be such a big baby, will ya?’  

Being a woman is terribly humiliating.  

And getting older can suck.

Then I went back to work and totally felt violated and needed consoling, so I had a wrap and a diet coke…but I HAD TO PAY SO REALLY, IT WAS A SUCKY DATE.  

THANKS TECHNICIAN, LADY. I hope when you have your internal ultrasound, you have someone there to pat your hand and say supportive things like, ‘THERE, THERE. YOU SURVIVED YOU STRONG LOVELY WOMAN” And NOT giggle at the discovery of your elusive right ovary WHICH WAS PROBABLY HIDING FROM THE WEIRD ASS GLOW STICK RANDOMLY WANDERING AROUND IN THERE. AND also you won’t have to listen to shit like, “OH I HEAR IT’S NOT THAT BAD AND HOLD ON, JUST A BIT OF PRESSURE.”  

Ugh.  

 Here is a pic of a cute sloth. You. Are. Welcome. 

A Dance In The Hurricane

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The other day I was cleaning out our closet.  It was time to do some much needed purging.   I decided to gut out everything and go from there.  I ended up finding some old cards from a few years ago when my mother passed away.  I opened each one and read them again, this time with five years behind me.  They were sweet and sympathetic.  My Aunt had sent one reminiscing about when she and my mother were teens and very close.  Some I kept and others I didn’t.  So much for the big purge.    In among the cards I found a letter that was written by a childhood friend of the family.  Her kids were friends with us when we lived in the old neighbourhood.  She and her husband were friends with my parents.  We used to visit them at their house after they moved away into a new house.  She wrote to say how dismayed she was of my mother’s passing and that she hadn’t realized my mother continued to reside in Chatham.  She assumed she had moved in either my brother or myself.  She was disappointed she had not made the effort to reconnect.  I think she was disappointed neither had my mother.  I don’t think it was anyone’s fault that they got disconnected.  It was just life.

Kids grow up, graduate, move on to university or not, tragic events unfold, weddings and new houses, new babies, new lives.  It’s everything that happens over a lifetime. We get disconnected. We get disjointed and enmeshed in the everyday we forget the connections that were made years ago on a summer’s day when the children were small, who later walked to the bus stop hand-in-hand on frosty fall mornings, caught “all things squirmy and squishy” (her words) and played basketball until nightfall.

letter

Those days get lost in band practices, packed lunches, hockey games and baseball tryouts.  People get older, move to other streets or to other towns.  They work, they make new friends, they move on to other hobbies, other occupations and other past times without the old acquaintances that have become a part of their past.  The present is different.  Its fluid and changes with the seasons and the ever-speeding passage of time.  We don’t notice the children becoming adults until they are there.  We don’t notice our hair changing colour until our hairstylist points it out (while saying loudly WHY ARE YOU NOT COMING HERE MORE OFTEN?!  )  we don’t notice the deeper cracks in the sidewalks outside the house,  how the maple tree has grown exponentially or how few little children are out playing street hockey these days, until all of that suddenly seeps into our consciousness and we take a look around us with open eyes.  And older eyes.  How did this happen?  When did we get HERE?

I understand her disappointment and dismay.  It seems like a sudden about-face of one minute she’s there, the next she’s gone, but really it wasn’t like that.  It was a lifetime of being, of living of surviving.  The disconnection of relationships is unfortunately, an everyday occurrence that can be prevented if we take the time.  Aye there’s the rub.  TIME.  We never have enough. It flies away so fleetingly.  If only we had more time to connect, to say ‘hey’, to reminisce, to support, to actually stop and watch everything grow and change without having to be awoken to its transformation.  It’s a difficult dance.  Maybe we don’t want to watch because if we do, then we’ll have to admit that we are getting older, life is flying by without us even moving or flinching in this hurricane.   Maybe we don’t really want to see the children getting older or the sidewalk cracking or the maple tree growing so big we can’t see across the street, anymore.  We’d rather hold on to today, to live in the present, just let me have one more day!

Connections are our lifelines.  We crave them, seek them out and some hold dear for a lifetime.  Our intentions are for connections to last as long as we take a breath, to be eternal and constant, but sometimes those bonds get weaker and grow more distant, then are suddenly lost in the gale force wind.  It’s not wrong.  It’s life.

I’m thinking after all of this time, to send her a letter of reply.  To let her know I did receive her letter and I did read it and I still have it.  That I remember everything she said was true.

Maybe, that could be one little dance in the hurricane.

The Universe Is Being Trumpy

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Whenever an issue arises that seems too all-encompassing or beyond any conscious reckoning, I throw it on out to the Universe to take care of. That way, if it all goes to shit, I can throw my fist into the air and curse the Universe for being obstinate or even a little too self-important and not blame myself for being lazy or forgetful. I mean really, you couldn’t spare five minutes to take care of that little thing I asked for? YOU HAD ONE JOB, UNIVERSE.  

Meanwhile, I’m stuck reveling in the mundane and eking out a bit of fun where I can muster the energy. This life thing is tedious sometimes and I must admit to being just a bit tired. I get tired thinking of getting up in the morning, I get tired of going to work, I get tired of doing household crap and I get tired of getting tired. I sound old. And like I’ve just given up on life all together, but really I haven’t. Honest.  

I still get to sit by the fireplace on my quiet nights when I’m alone and write in my journal. I still get to get out with friends and be obnoxious. I still get to bother my kids and ask annoying questions like ‘what are you doing?’ and say the ever popular ‘CRACK IS WHACK’ That pretty much sums up my discussion on drugs. That and ‘JUST SAY NO’. Lame slogans I can get behind. My point in there somewhere is that even when life seems very dull or overly annoying to the point of downright ridiculous, I can still find things to make me feel a little myself again. Like spew annoying clichés at the kids about drugs. Write about my dullness in my journal that is non-judgy and even kinda enjoys my boring run-on sentences. At least, that’s how I like to think of it. I get to exercise. SOME people may roll their eyes or say ‘oh, yeah. What a privilege’ but when I look forward to getting to the studio and a having someone yell at me that ‘YOU CAN DO ANYTHING FOR TEN SECONDS’ and ‘YAY BURPEES!’ then maybe, it’s become a part of me. Maybe I can’t have a good day without moving and feeling stronger. Or maybe, deep down I’m a masochist and I like all the yelling and sweating and swearing…like a Trump rally, only without all the hate.

Either way, there are other things to do and feel good about when life gets dull or ridiculous or too Trumpy. (Trumpy – Adj. word that describes life when it gets judgy, hateful, sweaty and utterly ridiculous to the point of giving the world the middle finger. Eg. He was to the point of swinging from the balcony after his girlfriend dumped him. He wanted to give up. He felt his life had become too Trumpy without her presence. ) Feel free to use this new word. I expect Webster’s will indoctrinate it soon enough.

Get outside, find a hobby, write in a journal, or do some burpees…whatever makes it better.  

Leaving shit up to the Universe to take care of may work some of the time, but it seems to me if I can tackle it myself, it will work out better. This way, I might get all of the blame but I just may get all of the credit, too! And of course, the cake in the end.  

THERE IS ALWAYS CAKE IN THE END…

 

Right! Best. Quote. Ever.

 

 

Perfection Is A Myth and Words I Don’t Like

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It is a myth. Seriously. Perfection is impossible to attain. It’s an illusion. A mirage. A trap designed to suck you in and laugh while you fail miserably at all attempts to own it. Don’t fall for it. Just be you. Imperfect. Flawed. Making mistakes and owning up to them. It’s better for all of us if you just calm down and be you. You will be better for it. So will your mother. And your father. Siblings. Friends. Colleagues. The kid that mows your lawn. The guy that leaves you creepy notes on your desk….Everybody. Essentially, the human race will be better for it. Stop trying to perfect perfection. It can’t be done. Instead, concentrate on being. Being in the moment, being present, being you. Still trying to stand up straight, still working, still breathing, still paying your bills and raising your kids; still walking your dog and helping your neighbour; still falling down and getting back up only to fall down again. Maybe that last part is just me. Anyway, we like you. Honestly, we do! Stop trying to be better than someone else or better than anyone or anything. It’s not a competition. Just be you.  

That was my anti-perfection rant. I felt it needed to be said.

Also, I need milk.

Words I Don’t Like

I felt like I needed to sub-title the second half just to make it easier for you to follow along. I didn’t want someone to get lost inside this post and wonder what the hell all the fuss was about. I care.  

I hate the word ‘deserve’. I don’t understand its usage. How does one person ‘deserve’ something more than another person? How does that work, exactly? I deserve to have a day off and the other person doesn’t? Or do we both deserve it? Who decides? “Go have a good time. You deserve it!” I’ve heard that on many occasions. How do I deserve that? I worked hard? So did many others. Do they deserve it to? “Oh he got what he deserves.” Implies that he was on the other end of some bad shit. What did he do to ‘deserve’ that? Broke the law? Broke someone’s heart? Broke Mrs. Brady’s lamp? What?  

It bothers me.

I never use this word.

It’s in line with other words I don’t like.  

I have a list:

Bitch ( Although, I did force myself to use that in a post)

Moist (I’m not the only one who HATES this word)

Dumb

Stupid

Retard(ed) (SHOULD BE OBLITERATED FROM THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE)

Various terms used to describe women genitalia (All of them are AWFUL)

Craptastic (WHO THOUGHT OF THIS WORD?! Ugh)

Newfie ( Newfoundlander is much better, thank you. AND, just so you know, I’m not a REAL Newfoundlander, I’m still a Mainlander with an honorary title of Newfoundlander. Somebody important told me that. I can’t tell you who, it’s all very hush-hush. Stop asking. A secret ceremony was held. There may or may not have been alcohol involved…)

 

I can’t think of any more right now, but I’m sure there are a few that bug me. Add to the list if you like…It’s an add-on-to-the-awful-word-list blog post. I like to get people involved.

I’m a giver like that.