Next year I just want to stay alive

Next year I just want to stay alive.

This is my resolution. This is my battle. And my mantra is “If I can do this, I can do anything”.

This year can go to hell. Well, it did go to hell when I found out that little thump I get in my chest now and then, is actually my heart trying to overcompensate for a main aortic valve which is rapidly failing, blocked, refluxy and threatening to kill me. No pain, hardly any symptoms, just a little thumpiness.

So this new year’s eve, I think to hell with it, drink champagne if you can stay awake that long, because next year you are changing, whether you like it or not. A lifetime of procrastinating, of convincing myself that my body is OK no matter what size it is, of learning to like myself for me not what I look like. Throw it away! Girl, next year you are changing.

I have prepared all the medical stuff, first the ECG, with heaps of sticky dots with wires attached all over my chest, shoulders and torso, lying very still while they trace pretty lines of my heart’s rhythm. Then the echocardiogram where they listen to your heart “sloosh sloosh, sloosh sloosh”, it sounded fine to me, but that was the giveaway, when the technician started scowling at the screen and listening over and over. After the overnight halter monitor, and ECG “to go” that apparently you aren’t supposed to notice strapped and stuck to your body for 24 hours.

All to confirm the specialist’s thoughts. Not good. A half day in hospital for a trans-esophegeal echocardiogram, where, awake but a bit stoned, you swallow a tube with an echo gizmo on the end that takes an impression of your heart close up. Gross gross gross! The throat anaesthetic had me choking and trying to vomit. Did I mention blood tests? Chest X ray and CT, neck ultrasound and finally (almost) another half day in hospital for an angiogram, where a little camera sneaks into your wrist artery and wanders along to your heart to have a close up look at your arteries and veins and what’s going on.

Only one more thing, the dentist, you have to have a clear bill of health from the dentist. A full check up and xrays day one. Or a good gum check I needed to take 4 strong antibiotics the hour before and then get poked, stabbed and prodded all along the gums (ouch ouch ouch!!!). That bit of meditation I’ve been practicing helped there, breathe in, think about your nose breathing, breathe out. Repeat. Think of nothing else, concentrate.

One more dentist visit to come for a few fillings, then ready. Ready as I can be. Ready for my pre-admission meeting, where I meet my physio, anaesthetist, doctors, who knows? More blood tests, fun days.

They are going to slice and saw my chest open. They will stop my heart. I wonder if I’ll see my Mum on the other side for a moment? They will sew in a new valve, a mechanical one that will give me a long life without needing to be replaced. Apparently, I’ve just found out, I will hear it tick. 

I am through the disbelief. I have controlled the panic for now. I occasionally self-medicate with alcohol. I am taking one step at a time toward that massive chasm, that fast flowing river at its base. Step by step.

And so for 2023 I resolve:

To be nice to myself. To listen to me. To be as understanding and loving and un-judgemental as I am with everyone else.

To keep walking. Literally, I need to walk to become fit enough to get my body through this surgery; and metaphorically, to take whatever steps I need to achieve a successful outcome and become a healthier person.

To stop eating all the disappointing snacks and fried food and carbs and chocolate and lollies and hash browns especially and stuff that I crave, I eat, and I feel like shit afterwards. What’s the point and how many years am I going to fall for that joke?

To accept help from my family and friends, although I want and need to be independent and strong and self-reliant, I know at least for a while I will not be able.

To move away from the surgery afterwards without dwelling on illness, on trauma or ongoing medication, but to accept that it has happened and progress with my life.

To take those holidays I have been promising myself. To see my son and his family in Perth, to explore Western Australia and absorb it’s wonders; and to take an epic rail journey with my sister which reminds us of our Mum’s travels in her youth through outback Australia, and gives her a companion to travel with after her husband died unexpectedly.

I’d like to become a different person. Still me, cause I quite like me, but someone who is fit, and can go hiking, or swim in the sea, or anything she wants to do, because she is able to. I don’t want to avoid crowded cafes because I can’t fit between the tables and chairs, or the chairs are too flimsy to hold me. I don’t want to need to accept when that nice person offers me their seat in the train. I don’t want to become purple-faced whenever I move a bit, so that people think I’m unwell. I guess I am unwell.

And yet right now, today, I am the most healthy in our house. My 96 year old dad is recovering from a fall where he hit his head and got a Christmas gift of four stitches, my ancient dog is having swallowing problems, is sad and tired and wobbly-legged and my husband has gout and a slightly broken ankle and needs to stay off his feet. Is writing giving me a little break? Too right it is.

Mainly I resolve to live. To not die. I do not allow that. Besides anything else I don’t have a will. I’m not well organised. The place is a mess. I have no money. I need my husband, and my dog, and my garden. 

It’ll be alright in the end, and if it’s not alright, it’s not the end.