Now and Then

I used to be a teacher, a nurse, a mom. I loved my busy life.   Lots of women say that, but really I was literally all these things.  Then right before ‘the great lockdown of 2020’, all that ended.  I had a heart attack, then another then a stroke on the table.  Yeah, I’ve always been an overachiever.  

On this fateful day, all was well, or so I thought.  I had what I thought was severe heartburn the night before but turned out to =be the first heart attack.  As I sat up in bed crying with the pain, my husband, alarmed, wanted to know if we should go to the hospital.. I shook my head and held up my finger as if I had temporarily lost my voice.  After a few minutes the pain subsided, we went to sleep and the next morning I went to work, the night before was forgotten.  

Except, it wasn’t.  I had pains in my chest for a couple of days but I ignored them.  Was work this important to me?  I had become a nurse ‘late in life’ graduating with my RN degree at age 55, the oldest in my class.  It was hard but I had always had this interest in science and the human body.  I knew somewhere deep inside that I would be in the hospital b y that night. I wasn't wrong.  My husband called me at lunch time to ask how I was and I said, “I'm going to the cardiologist” half crying now which was very unlike me, I told my husband that I'd meet him at the doctors and told my class I’d be back.  Except,I never went back to the classroom, and I never went back to my patients.  Life as I knew it was about to change drastically and forever. 

The doctor sent me straight to the hospital. There was no going back to class, there was no collection of anything.  At the hospital they confirmed my worst fears. I had had a heart attack the night before and they would do a catheterization tomorrow.  

Searing pain ripped through my chest the next morning waking me from a fitful sleep.  I cried out and a grouchy nurse rolled her eyes and asked “why are you crying?”  It hurts. I blubbered, holding my chest and crying.  I grabbed my phone and hurriedly dialed my husband as they wheeled me down to the cath lab.  

Almost too calmly they brought me in for the procedure and I fell asleep when I was given more medication than I had ever had.  When I awoke several hours later I knew something was wrong.  I had severe double vision and a headache that was award winning.   No one believed me, and I was assured that double vision was expected after anesthesia.  Really?  I had never heard that, as a  surgical RN not one of my patients had ever made this observation.  Hours went by and finally after all my complaints and my husband's increase in   angry visits to the nurses station a neurologist came to see me.  She opened her mouth and the most amazing words came out, I'm pretty sure you've had a stroke.  A stroke? My husband broke down in tears and I watched helplessly as my mother hugged him.  I wondered what was happening, I wasn’t altogether there.  

I was deemed fine to go home after 12 days. I could barely walk with a walker and couldn’t see out of my right eye but everyone seemed to think I was fine!  What I didn’t know was that they were trying to get unnecessary patients (me) out of the hospital. Unbeknownst to almost everyone, COVID was coming. 

I went home with a walker and a cane and smiling attendants telling me I was doing great! Really?  I attended 3 or 4 sessions of physical and occupational therapies, neurologists, eye specialists before lockdown ended it all.  I was trapped, in my home, in my body, in my mind, and that was the scariest part.  I tried to assure work that I’d be back, told my husband, mother and sister that I would get better, but everyone looked at me as if I was crazy. Maybe I was.  My younger son finally convinced me, saying “Mom, think of us, think of yourself”. Maybe this was a wake up call.  I had been working more and more, taking on a lot of work and getting home later each night. Although 

I had stressed myself out to the point of illness,  I couldn’t grasp the seriousness of the situation, I couldn’t grasp the thought of never working again.  

I had no idea what to do all day. Eventually my husband went back to work. I could do whatever I wanted to, but what did I want?  Never having faced that question I had no idea.  I cleaned, I cooked, I took walks on our property. I expected my husband to entertain me on weekends.  

One thing that I had always wished for was a hobby.  I loved reading but other than that and walking I never had time to cultivate a fun life.  Now, faced with years ahead (I hoped) I needed something to occupy my hours.  Enter watercolor painting!  Crazy right?  My younger son (again) stepped up and convinced me to give it a try.  I never thought I had it in me, but I did!

I bought all the needed supplies, tried lots of methods, I started to look at trees, scenes, you tube  videos and I put brush to paper countless times.  I gave paintings away, made cards, I was a painting maniac!  I had found my hobby.  I never thought it was in me, and some believe that the stroke shook loose the right side of my brain that hadn't worked this hard before.  

Slowly my eyes improved, I still see double and wear special glasses but when I paint, the rest of the world disappears.  My pain, which is substantial due to many auto immune issues, disappears.  Covid, sort of disappears.  I am starting to cautiously be happy again.  I still miss work, I miss nursing.  I never intended to stop working, thinking I’d be that old lady who worked till she was 80.  But, here I am.  My life is way different than I had planned, but I am finding a sort of peace.  I am concentrating on myself, I do my exercises, I paint, I cook, I make our house a home for me and my husband.  Who’s to say this isn’t worthwhile?  It has required a huge change in my mind, a change in how I see myself and my place in the world.  

Life has not turned out the way I thought it would, but you know what? It may be better. I am calmer, more thoughtful, nicer to people.  I have time to weigh my answers, think, do yoga, write.  I am making myself and my whole world into something new, something I always imagined but never had the time for.  I realize that time is a commodity to be used and I only have a limited amount.  My former life was fulfilling in so many ways but I did not appreciate what I was losing in the constant ‘doing’.  Now I am a human, being.