It was still dark outside, I opened my eyes feeling that my heart was racing, I couldn’t breath, and the pain was so severe that I couldn’t move, it felt like someone was pressing my upper body to the bed and I was unable to move; my shoulders, arms and upper body were extremely heavy and I couldn’t move, I felt like I couldn’t talk or scream out that I was in pain; I had my friend’s family staying with me for a few days and I was afraid of waking them up because they had to get up to go to work the next day, but I couldn’t breathe, I was not coordinating, I stayed in bed waiting for the pain to pass, it did pass, but when I tried to up, I was extremely dizzy and weak. I made it to the bathroom and called out to my friend Linda for help. I was pale and unable to think, stand or breathe, it was hard for me to understand what was going on and Linda, being a nurse, instructed me to get dressed so she could take me to the emergency room.
It was really early when we arrived at the Arcadia Methodist Hospital, they asked me to sign the forms so a doctor could see me, but I couldn’t write, I could barely moved and needed to crouch down in order to breathe, my brain was not functioning and I felt like I was fainting…. The nurse came out and wheeled me into one of the emergency rooms, the doctor came in and saw my distress, he gave orders to the nurses, an IV was inserted on my left arm and the doctor came in to tell me that my heart was going to be restarted, that the reason my brain wasn’t functioning was that my heart was not carrying oxygen to my brain and my heart was going to be restarted! I was given an intravenous injection and was told that I was going to feel a flush throughout my body, meanwhile, there was a machine brought to the door of the room I was in and I had one nurse on each side of my shoulders and one nurse by my left leg and the doctor on my right, I think they were expecting me to flat line because they were prepared to revive me or something worse. Fortunately for me, once the medicine was injected I had a fairly quick reaction and within seconds my brain was functioning again. The doctor kept me in for a couple of hours and sent me home. I was ready to go back to work until Linda stopped me and pointed out the seriousness of what had just happened.
It took me a while to realize that I had been so stressed and that my body needed to slow down! Slow down I did, I continued to take a couple of days off and went to my regular doctor for a check up and to organize my doctor appointments because now I had been ordered to a cardiologist who could tell me if I had in fact, had had a heart attack.
Breaking my heart wide open and restarting my heart was a new beginning and a closing of my old life, a second chance at life.
A couple years before this incident, I had been going to a Chinese Herbalist and Acupuncturist for a coughing problem, it had been checked by my MD and after running tests they couldn’t find anything wrong with my lungs. I had been coughing for a few months and it had started to annoy me. When I started going to the Chinese Doctor, she told me that my heart and lungs were working together in synergy with one another and that I needed to heal my broken heart.
After my mom died, life was transformed and it seemed that I had prepared myself for her departure, but when the reality of her transitioning hit my heart, it was broken wide and totally sad, there was nothing I could do to find a resting space.
Around the time that Mom got sick, my son had left home on his way to creating his own life. The sadness and lack of preparation to become an empty nester at the same time that I was in the process of helping mom in her transitioning process. My brother, sister and I were with her every step of her process. We had decided to spend as much time with her as we could, but everyone grieves in their own way and I found myself alone for the first time and mom was not around any more to console me or to give me advice. In the last years of mom’s life we had spent a lot of time together, she loved to cook and so my son and I would go to her apartment to eat with her and watch tv and talk.
Mom’s departure left me heartbroken… Until one day, it finally decided to show me a way to healing. After leaving the hospital that day, I started going to the cardiologist and eventually found a way to heal my broken heart and open to new possibilities in my life. It took time and lots of searching to find a way to find the magical and joyful me… Now I wake up every morning with a grateful heart in the recognition that it took me a while to find my way and now when I look back, I understand that it was all a process of recognizing the beauty within, the love that I am and the power that I am. It was never outside of me…… It was always within me!
