My Broken Heart

Since my heart attack two weeks ago I’ve struggled with ‘why?’ and ‘how in the world?’  I’ve attempted to conceptualize the incident as a simple detour, playing with downgrading it even to a mere “speed bump,” the initial title and premise

of this week’s post.  Most notably, I’ve focused on getting back on my path, continuing my life as before, with this bizarre nonsense behind me.  It’s what I want; it’s what my friends and family certainly want and wish for me.  Our collective capacity to remain sorting through the aftermath of this ‘heartbreak’ appears to have a shelf life of about a week and a half.  I find myself now saying what’s expected, what’s on the cue cards.  I’m fine, it’s all over, nothing is wrong now at all.  Nothing to see here, keep moving.

But two weeks later and I’m still stumbling around in circles, confused as ever.  I’m beginning to suspect this new territory isn’t just a detour at all.  The

proverbial Kansas is gone and I fear there are no ruby slippers to find, to get me back to where I was.  I’m in some dark, unrelenting, director’s cut foreign release version of my life, and there is no way out.

While I was drugged, I was clearly lifted off-planet and deposited on alien turf that is unrecognizable, utterly foreign.  I watch the natives here closely and mimic their behavior carefully. I

try to do what’s expected of me, whatever I can think of that might help, whatever I can to ingratiate myself into this frightening and alien existence.  I’m trying to learn the language; nonsensical syllables haphazardly thrown together, pulled from ancient languages, each word requiring its own specialized dictionary for translation, phrases like severe ostial stenosis, percutaneous coronary intervention, premature ventricular contractions, ventricular ectopy.  That one means heart death.  Part of my heart has died.

So no – I’m not fully navigating, not back on my course.  And now another wave has knocked me over before I can even crawl to my knees.

New information is divulged to me during my first follow up appointment with my cardiologist. 


My first impression as I walk through the doors of the hospital’s cardiac suite is “I don’t belong here.”  This is the land of the old, the feeble, whose bodies are winding down and giving notice.  I don’t belong here.  But it is warm, comforting, a concerted effort made towards diminishing the sterile hospital feel, and I appreciate it.  The staff is efficient, professional.  The nurse seemed so disappointed in me that I didn’t bring the dosages of my medications with me.  I didn’t know.  I felt quite accomplished just memorizing their names.  This is a bit new to me.  Her ‘mom look’ of disappointment, the pause, the non-audible sigh as she retrieved the information herself.  I vow to myself I’ll do better, hating to be a bother.

I’m taken to my new leader, the Chief of this land, my cardiologist.  Some imprinting has apparently already occurred and she is my new BFF.  I recall how she immediately took and held my hand in the hospital before we were even
introduced and didn’t let go.  We hug, joke, bitch about our jobs, the insurance company that has denied me my rehabilitation program I desperately need and want.  I am outraged.  She just laughs and tells about another insurance company she is dealing with who is disputing another patient’s claim of an office visit prior to his heart procedure, where he actually died and was resuscitated in the office.  Rogue that she is, she seems to believe the claim should be valid, but is compelled to justify it to the insurance claims department.

Then she tells me my whole story, what they didn’t reveal in the hospital. 

I was even more “atypical” then I realized.  There were many consultations,
debates about how to proceed.  My doctor spoke with the surgeon numerous times.  She convinced him to get me in to the front of the line that morning.  He

had 11 procedures to do that day.  I bumped somebody.  When he performed the catheterization, injected the dye, the right side of my heart was “beautiful”, working perfectly.  On the left, towards the center where the left descending artery comes round from the back, meets up in the middle, it was cloudy, unclear.  They redid it until eventually they were able to see the picture.  Towards the center of my heart, hidden in that juncture was a section of artery in which the plaque had suddenly and randomly detached from the wall and ruptured, causing all of the

platelets to then rush in, do their dog pile on top of the perceived wound.  It’s their task to stop blood from spilling out, but in doing so they filled the artery completely, closing it up, killing part of their own host.  This tiny piece of plaque had simply and mysteriously, without apparent cause or reason, detached and exploded.  A time bomb implanted since when? 

This discovery resulted in more backroom discussions, other experts were called and consulted.  Because of the location of the rupture, placing a stent was very difficult.  The consensus of the team and consultants was to perform open heart bypass surgery.  It had the best odds for a successful outcome and seemed the

only way to actually be able to repair the rupture and damage.  My surgeon though, thought he could do the stent placement – he is a “cowboy” surgeon I was later told.  He did do it.  It worked.  I guess I can say my heart got to bypass a bypass.  For now, it remains unmolested from the horror of being laid out open.

A ruptured plaque is not a common occurrence.  They have no idea what causes it, why it happens.  Research is just now beginning into the phenomenon.  It will

be a very long time until they even have a chance of figuring this out.  For me, all they could do was try to repair it.  The rupture hurt my heart, caused damage – an actual heart attach diagnostically.  It ‘should’ recover.

I was healthy, relatively in shape, going into this and I am healthy now.  The medications I take are all for conditions I don’t have – high blood pressure, high cholesterol, platelet regulation.  My cardiologist has already decreased the dosage of one, speculates I’ll eventually come off all of them.  There’s nothing these medications can do for me.

When I leave the doctor’s office and check out, the staff are excited to learn I can navigate a computer, that I have a smart phone.  There are portals, even

an app, with so much information laying in wait for somebody who can access it.  But so what?  All my research, hell, all their copious research, doesn’t do a damn thing for me other than what it does for the general population – admonishments for healthy living.  I’m provided my hospital discharge summary and read it – my presenting condition is misrepresented, I can see the pull towards painting me in familiar colors.  The entirety of my ordeal is neatly summarized in two small paragraphs.  I am stable and discharged.  Moving on.

I don’t know if my broken heart will explode again, nobody knows if I am more
susceptible now.  There is no prevalence data, no research.  There isn’t any ship

coming for me, to rescue me from this foreign land.  I’m here for the duration.  There is no going back.  My home world has been annihilated – there is nothing left to return to.  I have to adapt, again and again, learn to navigate this landscape that just won’t seem to stay still beneath my timid tread.
 
There’s this little nagging feeling like I’m supposed to now be doing something profoundly different; that I’ve been given a sign, a message.  I fear I’m missing the memo.  Can something like this even happen and there not be a reason?  Finding meaning in life, insisting upon it, needing it for our very survival, defines us as a species.  What if there just doesn’t seem to be any?  Will there be even worse retribution if I don’t get it, figure it out?  Should I make something up to appease the gods of fate?

 
I can only exist day by day in the uncertainty, strive for normalcy.  Night by night I lie awake listening to the ticking of my heart, wondering if it’s attached to a fuse, if it will ever feel normal again.