February 2010 | The Day after the Heart Attack
“You know, you had the perfect heart attack,” the intensive care nurse said while checking my vitals.
I was in recovery, and Dr. Pancetta had just been in to tell me what they found during the catheterization.
The heart attack had been caused by an arterial dissection. Part of my artery’s wall had broken away, causing blood to flow between the layers and forcing them apart. This initiated the attack, or myocardial infarction, as it’s called in the medical world. By the time Dr. Pancetta did the catheterization, the arterial tear had “miraculously” repaired itself. There was no blockage or plaque buildup, and no stent was needed.
I was confused. Even curious.
“A perfect heart attack? What do you mean?” I asked. The thought was laughable. Everyone knows heart attacks are bad.
“I mean, if you had to have a heart attack, you did it the right way,” she said and smiled. “No blockage, only a little damage to the heart, and you’re still alive!”
Only a little damage—ha! If she only knew. But she was right. It was perfect. My broken heart had fixed itself. I wondered how long the cure would hold.
Only hours before, I had been on a gurney in the hospital’s ER, alone and afraid I was going to die. I still couldn’t believe it. I had a heart attack?
Dr. Pancetta and Dr. Fams, the other cardiologist assigned to my case, both asked me the same questions, though at different times and on different rounds.
Do you smoke, Aimee? Do you have any history of heart disease in your family? Are you a drug user?
No, no, and no.
As a generally healthy forty-one-year-old woman with no risk factors who’d suffered a heart attack, I was an anomaly.
Hmmm. This is strange.
When each grasped his clipboard in one hand and flipped pages in bafflement with the other, I felt like I should tell the truth.
The words, hanging there in that hospital room’s stale air—“I told my husband I wanted a divorce three days ago”—sounded heavy and odd. They were so new. Unwelcome even.
But full of explanation for a heart attack.
Ahhhhh, I see. Makes sense.
“What questions do you have?” Dr. Fams asked. His tall, kind presence filled the room, which seemed to shrink around us.
“What am I going to do now?” I wanted to ask him. “Where am I going to go when I leave here?” But he didn’t have the answers to those questions.
“Could it happen again?” I asked.
I didn’t think surviving a heart attack was as common as dying from one, and I had made it through alive. I didn’t want the same thing to happen once I left the observation of doctors and nurses.
He sat down in the room’s chair then and leaned forward.
“The heart attack you had will most likely not repeat itself.”
He explained that the spontaneous arterial dissection could mean weakened arteries and the potential for another “cardio event,” so they were admitting me for a few days of rest and observation to be cautious.
“We’re pretty sure that your arterial dissection and heart attack were caused by high blood pressure and stress,” Dr. Fams said. “We’ve prescribed medicine for the blood pressure, but,” he paused, “once you’re home, you have to find new ways to deal with stress.”
Home. Yikes. Where was that now?
Jerrica had already asked me if I was coming home, and her question, full of assumption, surprised me.
“No, Jerr, I’m not. I can’t.”
I knew that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. Her life—Natalie’s life, Connor’s life—had just been turned upside down. I knew she expected what every kid would: Mom would come home and heal, Dad would take care of her, and she would forget about the divorce, the cause of the stress.
“Well I don’t know why not,” she said. “Obviously, you need rest. You need to come home.”
Everything was so black and white to teenagers.
A flash of guilt brought the faintest fluttering of anxiety across my chest. Should I go home? No, that would be crazy. “Home” was part of what caused this. Of course I didn’t want to be away from my children—all I had known for seventeen years was being with them, caring for them—but I also couldn’t imagine what going home might mean right now.
Any mom knows that the last place to go expecting rest is home.
Plus, a piece of my heart had been damaged there.
I didn’t respond to Jerr, and that was the end of it. She didn’t try to talk me into coming home again.
“I understand that you’re in a tricky situation with your husband, but your health has to be the most important thing right now,” Dr. Fams went on. “What do you do for a living, Aimee?”
“I’m a teacher. Twelfth-grade English.”
“More stress?” he asked, a smile peeking out from under his dark mustache.
“No, not really. This is my eighteenth year, so I’m used to it by now. How long will I be off work?”
“Six weeks. And in a few, I want you to start our cardio rehab program. I’ll get you some information,” he said and left.
The hospital’s twelve-week cardio rehabilitation program was made up of two components: classes on managing diet and stress, and an exercise regimen, all for the sake of learning how to live a heart-healthy life. Cardio fitness trainers would design a workout just for me, and my heart would be monitored while I did it, three times a week, at their facility and on their exercise equipment.
Six weeks off school to rest, a personally prescribed exercise routine, and coaches to encourage me along the way. Just the way to start my new life.
Perfect.
II
“After a while you could get used to anything.”
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