A flurry of activity ensued in the Cath. lab but it wasn't me doing the moving. I was on lock down with a mask over my face, full metal oxygen tank at my side, a co-op student monitoring my breathing (ok they said she was 'training') and they let the husband come in. 

"I'm sooo sorry" I said to him. I told him it would be routine, that he only had to stick around if I needed a ride to the other hospital for a stent now look at the mess I stuck him with. He looked like he was in shock. 

"You're apologizing???" He was in shock, normally he would have said something sarcastic. 

The mask got in the way of much further conversation and there seemed to be a lot of people moving around the space.

"Thank you for your help everyone, now if you don't need to be in the room please leave!" my cardiologist's voice boomed. The husband held my hand, not leaving my side as the remaining medical staff continued to rush around -I'm not sure what they were doing. An ambulance was called, there was something stuck to my left leg that felt like metal, IV lines were attached and changed. I felt tired.

"My chest bone hurts" I said starting to realize that something besides fainting happened.

"That's because you had CPR" the high school student said.

"Oh". It was slowly sinking in. I remembered the sound of fluid filling my brain and the nausea, I remembered telling them I was going to faint, but I didn't remember the DYING part! 

"I had a heart attack?" I asked, shocked.

And here's where the first correction came.

"No. You had Cardiac Arrest". 

"Isn't that the same thing?" I asked.

"No. Your heart stopped. You fainted and the bottom dropped out -your blood pressure dropped so low your heart stopped. It does that, it shuts down when too many confusing signals hit your heart at once. A heart attack is a signal your heart is in danger of stopping." The doctor explained. 

I vaguely remember another doctor coming in and introducing himself and telling me he was going to do a procedure but the timeline of that is still fuzzy. I believe that was the temporary balloon injected into an artery that was keeping me alive until I had surgery but again, it's now unclear. 

When the dye was injected (in my foot) to travel through my arteries to detect any blockages, it acted like a kink on a hose. It cut off the flow of blood to my heart and confused my body went into fainting mode and my heart stopped. 

It seemed like forever until the ambulance came and when they arrived there was another flurry of activity. I was hooked up to multiple 'things', the attendant introduced himself and was very nice to the husband who got to ride up front. I don't remember hearing him ask to work the siren but I'm sure he was thinking it.

Side story: My good friend, Pat who was my partner at the food bank was aware I was going for the stress test. She is the regional intake nurse manager for the cardiology department in a nearby, much larger hospital than the one I was being tested at. I was joking with her at church the day before the test that I had better NOT see her the next day. We both knew if I showed up at her hospital it would be for an operation to open up the arteries, most likely stents, a one night stay at most. 

"I better not see you!" she joked.

She was the first face I saw when the ambulance arrived at her hospital. She looked worried.  

"I'm sorry" was all I could muster. She stayed close to my side as they got me into a room somewhere. Jay was not around, I was resting, snuggled up to a cold hard steel oxygen tank. Apparently he was busy on the phone.

"Lissa, your family is here" Pat my friend 'nurse-whispered' at me.

What? Why was my family brought here? How did they get here? Who drove? Who -

"Is it THAT bad?" I asked her calmly.

"The doctors thought it would be a good idea". She answered calmly.

That was a pivotal moment. I could die. That stupid fainting was now going to kill me. Instead of panicking I went into ultra calm mode. I remember telling God.

"OK. If you think you need me, I'm ready, your will, not mine". No anger, depression, bargaining, nothing just full on acceptance and complete calm. Not something I would predict considering my usual neurotic self. My family came in my daughter in tears, my mother in shock, Jay hovering around and the twelve year old looking at me calmly, shrugging. He was taking in the drama but not buying what everyone was selling. I think I apologized, told my daughter to stop crying, shrugged at my mom, in a 'such a bother, don't worry, sorry to drag you downtown' kind of way. Everyone seemed to be working at hiding their fear. But for some reason -maybe the sedative- I felt no fear just calm. A doctor came in said they were taking me to surgery and the family left. 

I woke up in Intensive care. I was in and out of consciousness. Sometimes my mother was standing there then a code blue would be called and she'd have to leave. Sometimes my daughter was there, I tried to talk but there was a ten foot pole shoved down my throat so I tried to explain I couldn't talk because I had a thing in my throat. She laughed because I was just repeating what the nurse was telling in the distance.

 I remember the pole coming out of my throat and feeling happy, I remember an ice chip being dropped into my mouth and saying, "THAT'S THE BEST ICE CHIP I'VE EVER HAD!", I remember this tiny nurse flipping me over to give me a vigorous back massage. I remember feeling positively euphoric when they dropped an orange flavoured chewable vitamin in my mouth. "That's the BEST TASTING VITAMIN EVER!" 

I think it was that moment they decided I could get out of ICU and into a room. For me, it was affirmation that I had one very bad heart day and now I was going to be ok. Not so for the daughter, the 23 year old. Her dad, my ex died mere days after surgery the year before and my family knew what I didn't about the surgery I had just come through.

Cardiac arrest. 

It ain't no heart attack, heart attacks are a warning, a pain, but a cardiac arrest is a finite experience that shows no favourtism between life and death. 

You die or you live. 

You don't even get to experience dying; dying is a whole other thing. It's a process with hills and valleys and emotion and a chance to comment on the experience.

Cardiac arrest is literally do or die. Luckily they did.

During a not-so-routine Angiogram my blood pressure dropped to the point where it crashed. Moments earlier I was lying on an examining table in a Catheter Lab. '70's music was pumped in to the room, with several medical staff  performing various duties in their scrubs. They set up an IV or something on the top of my foot where earlier they marked a spot with pen. When they began the injection I heard the fluid flowing into my cranium, an eerie sound and an equally shocking feeling. It sent me spiralling into unconsciousness. I fainted. 

The last thing I heard was the cardiologist yelling that he only got one picture off. He sounded pissed. 

The rest of the story was provided by the husband.

"Code Blue. Cath. Lab. Code Blue." The detached voice announced throughout the hospital.

The husband was in the Cath. lab waiting room, waiting when her heard the code.

Immediately he googled 'Code Blue' on his iphone. 

"Hey, Lissa's in the Cath Lab. Cool.

"Mr. Fraser?" a scrubbed medic asked looking at the panicked faces in the Cath. LAb waiting room.

"I'm Mr. Kerr." The husband responded. "My wife is Mrs. Fraser Kerr", he answered.

"Please come with me". 

The husband jumped up and followed, completely panicked. 

He came along with me that cold morning because I wasn't sure if I would need angioplasty, a relatively routine  procedure that involves injecting a stent into an artery to open the flow of blood previously blocked by a build up of gunk. The hospital I was in didn't perform this procedure and if a blockage was detected during the angiogram I would need to go to another hospital -an overnight stay was the worst-case scenario. 

"What's going on, is she ok?" He asked.

The hospital Chaplain appeared at his side. 

"Are you here because she's going to die?" he asked her.

The Chaplain said  "No, that's not why I'm here. You're alone and I'm here so you have someone to talk to". They waited outside the room I was in for what seemed like an eternity. Suddenly a burst of applause and cheering exploded from the room.

"I guess she's going to be ok", the husband said. 

Eventually they let him come into the room where my first words to him were, "I'm sorry". 

Apparently after a rousing round of CPR and an emergency stent my heart started again. It was weak and worn but it came back. As I came to I remember feeling the pain from the resuscitation in my chest and I remember thinking they had completely over-reacted to my fainting spell. 

As the husband held my hand and scrubbed medics ran around the room I realized as they put an oxygen mask on my face that it may be more serious than me having a fainting spell. 

That was just the beginning. It was February 28, 2011.

 

The husband spent the last few days trying to crack the code that is stuffandjunk so I can get back to the fun of selecting words and turning them into sentences. We got this far, but he wasn't able to hand cut and paste my eleventeen hundred entries into this new and hopefully improved site. He picked ten. I've written about this before probably in 2004, but he hasn't changed.That's how he does dishes. He chooses ten and cleans them. It's kind of his version of natural selection. He washes his ten favourites and then just walks away. The rest of the dishes sit, encrusted, neglected and discouraged. "I thought he would choose me this time", they cry.

I'm listening to the plaintive cry of a Beagle in the next yard. He sounds like he's howling in pain but since he does this every quarter hour I think he just suffers from separation anxiety. His owners do a very good job of ignoring him, the rest of the neighbors? Not so much.

It's been over a year since our dog departed and I still look for signs of healing from the husband. The dogs' toys still lay at his feet under his desk where he spends most of his days as a sort of memorial to the past. One day he'll move them to a box and put them 'away' and we'll be able to say the official mourning period is over. In the meantime the rallying cry for a new dog carries on -sounding much like the baying of the Beagles' over the fence. Only louder.

The one picture I have of that little bastard (technically, correct) he looks like he's giving the camera a dirty look.

"F*** arf."

I mentioned the $10,000 in furniture, accessories and medication, yes?

Instead of the toys he barely chewed on (he was too busy working his way through the living room couch) I choose to keep the pile of receipts from his life under my desk. Just in case I start to soften. Monetarily, we don't want a dog. Emotionally? Well, we still miss that little guy.

So why is it that everyone we know who would NEVER own a dog suddenly has one? They whip out the 'baby' pictures and tell endearing tales of dog-training. Their stories charm me, make my heart skip a beat and I think "Maybe I'm ready!"

That is, until I get home and see the little pile of toys still sitting at his master's feet... and hear the howls of the damn dog next door.

Nope. Not ready.

and not in the 'good' way. I'm being attacked by the loud, clanging internal clock that pokes it's sweaty head out every so often to announce, 'TIME'S UP!'

It starts like a weakness in the knees and a shaky, spine-tingling shiver. As soon as the brain registers it, it's on the move like a shot of adrenalin, a bolt of heat that pulses through your body until it erupts at your head. Suddenly you're covered in a film of cold sweat and your body temperature flashes into super-hot mode. It lasts mere minutes. By the time you're loosening your collar, sweater, blanket, whatever -you're back to what I've come to know as normal.

I find it fascinating however my family doesn't share the same feeling. They have been known to hold strategy meetings when I'm out -kind of like Al Anon for peri-menopause. I think they should call it, Survival of the Flashes and there should be courses and support groups for loved ones on how to cope with that evil-personified-witch-of a-monster-who-is-subjecting-everyone-to-her-polarizing-mood-swings. If someone comes up with it I would like it to be named after me, The Queen of the Hot Flashes because heck if you're going to go through it you might as well own it (and have awards).

Remember. I invented it.

The tile is gone. Sent back, banished to the tile warehouse from whence it came. Au revoir, mosaic tile stupide. You proved nothing, you gave no pleasure, you you you... disappointed me. You sat so perfectly in your box, perfect, grout-free, sparkly. I loved you passionately licked you furtively every time I walked past your temporary home on the bench while I waited for you to become my walls of splendor. But the days turned into weeks and still you sat collecting dust on the bench. Nobody wanted to take you on. Reports and updates of my designer/coworker's fiasco using the same tile spread like fire.

'There must be a manufacturing error.'

Words like a knife in my heart. This couldn't be. So beautiful but dysfunctional, so impossible to install without error. The reports got worse. We see every seam. Grout-free means it must be error free except they won't interlock. Correcting it makes it worse. The tiles sink in too deep and can't be popped out.

'The entire back splash will have to come out', she reported.

Tile! Why did you have to be so poorly designed? WHY? Why couldn't you play well with other tiles? Prima Donna tile. My designer/coworker sent pictures of her client's kitchen to the tile store. It wasn't the first time they heard about the tile being too difficult to install. They were sorry about her client's back-splash and they would honour the return of my untouched, uninstalled, dust-covered boxes of the most beautiful, but diva-like tile on the planet.

We took it back today -made it ride in the hatch like an inanimate object rather than the work-of-art marble tile I was sold on. We hoisted you with great effort onto the counter and sadly turned you in. My eye began to wander at all the sparkly tile around and before I knew it I was smitten anew. The grey marble bullet strips spoke to me. Their tone was less diva, more alto or fifth business, It was a humble beckoning rather than an earnest 'lookatme!' The husband took to it straight away and since it was an even trade the deal went down rather painlessly.

We'll be picking up our new tile next week and getting it installed soon... hopefully without incident.

Watch hockey or curling?

I'm not sure what's happened, if earth has ripped us a new axis or what but lots of people are coming out of the wood work and proudly declaring their love of curling.

What?

Hockey I can understand. You can be loud, proud and well, loud. Curling just seems so subdued. Like golf but with more innuendo. If you listen to the game without watching you'll hear what I'm talking about. Try adding, 'that's what she said!' to the commentary. Trust me, it's way more enjoyable than actually paying attention to the game. It's almost as much fun as the Lost drinking game which requires taking a shot of something something when certain moments occur like when Flocke (fake Locke) says, "I can tell you what you want to know" or Jack looking up skyward in angst (Jack's depressed, CHEERS!)

But sit down and follow the commentary for curling. Voices are not raised, the commentator does not get breathless and make rushed pronouncements just subtle remarks that set up the line beautifully. But don't take my word for it, you have to play along. Today when you hear things like "he's digging in the corner!" or "oh, so close!" just add the line "that's what she said" and tell me you didn't giggle like a ten year old boy.

Then try it during a curling match. Same thing but longer, slower, with more dulcet tones...

(that's what she said heeeeeeeeheeeeeeheeeeee!)

Talk about an exercise in aversion.

Even typing fifty just feels wrong. But it's there, it's square ... root is... math ... and right or wrong I've hit it and it was unresponsive, frigid, even. Except, that's a lie! Fifty IS responsive! It responds to touch in a flaccid, saggy way. It folds into itself creating a wave of ugly wrinkles when poked. Gravity pushes down on it and everything kind of congeals in a mess in the middle. But, heck, it's still a response!

The consultant looked at me, frowning. Well, you couldn't really call it a frown, the skin around her eyes barely moved.

"Yes, I have Botox in my forehead. I started at 37 and kept getting the shots so I wouldn't develop the deep worry lines like yours my grandmother's."

She did a quick tour of my lines with her calculator. My face would cost approximately $1200.00 to plum up and freeze into a youthful glow. That's $350 for the worry lines between my eyebrows, $400 for the lines beside my nose and $450 for the lines that go from the sides of my nose to my lips. I don't need Botox at the corners of my mouth, yet, she informed me (take away $350). But that's not all! Botox only lasts around 4 months, the other plumping stuff may last up to six months. That equals a whole lot of math per year that I could be spending on a vacation! A really GOOD vacation with meals and everything!

"Is the price ever going to be affordable to average women?" I asked, naively.

"Why would it? Women will pay whatever it takes".

Suddenly I was disgusted with myself, my vanity, my insecurity about aging. I know better, I do and yet I'm falling for the biggest, cruelest marketing trap geared to women.

"You're STILL not good enough"!

Every ad geared to my age category reminds me of my flawed appearance. A WRINKLE? A GREY HAIR? Your death awaits you, welcome to the end! But if you rub it, dye it, lift it, fill it with poison, or just cut it off, you will achieve eternal youth.

Valerie Bertinell didn't just lose weight she had a TON of surgery done to her body and face to tighten up the leftovers but the message to us is 'SEE? You too can look like Barbie.' That toy model we grew up with never aged, sagged, drooped or wrinkled. She is still impossibly proportioned and as perky as ever. I know this to be impossible, I'm a free-thinking female yet I was seduced by the message that I could STILL improve and that I should improve because everyone else is doing it!

So I lost weight. Again. Losing 40 pounds to free myself of hypertension and high blood sugar wasn't good enough. Losing weight didn't turn me into a swim suit model (I didn't expect it to but dammit, all the messages bombarding my brain gave me the illusion of a swim suit body). On the practical side I did it with a doctor, covered by our provincial medical system (yay, Doctor Daniels!) There were no meetings, nobody telling me I had to make losing weight about going to meetings, creating a secondary lifestyle - yuck! No supplements, no weird drinks, no special, expensive food plan, just common sense and the accountability of seeing a gruff, unsmiling man looking at the number on the cattle-sized weigh scale asking me if I exercised during the week. Hey, whatever works -my blood pressure is down and THAT should be good enough.

I can't afford to tighten up the leftovers or pay to temporarily reduce the effects of aging on my skin. Clearly there has to be an alternative to all the noise, the negative messages, the stereotyping and it's all up here (points to head). I looked at the old lady looking back at me in the mirror and made a decision, a vow as it were. I promised NOT to buy into the false advertising that I need to rid myself of any signs of aging at tremendous expense in order to feel good about me. I will look after my health. 

It's amazing how a virtual trip around the world (virtual is the key word, I'm in Waikiki today), a bit of concealer for the dark circles and a little blush can make a difference. I'm also going to treat myself on a regular basis to the easiest, cheapest facelift in the freaking world. Smile. Seriously go look in a mirror and do it! The change is amazing! And if anybody asks, yes, I invented the cure for aging and I'm giving the secret away to you for FREE! Do it. Go on, really. You'll thank me.

... between boy and brat is very thin.

Sure, you can have that heart to heart talk, explain things with proper terms and watch him concentrate on your words, nodding as he absorbs each new point, processing the information. You can ask for assurance that your words won't become weapons on the playground, that all you say will not be shared. You count on those momentary glimpses of maturity and understanding to step forward and be the grown up boy you hope he'll become. That composed boy who thanks you for explaining all those strange terms and things is the boy you are so proud to know, proud of how he handled all the new information. How he...

screamed out "sexual intercourse!!!" as he slid down the school yard hill last week.

The line got thinner as I heard the principal explain the 'zero tolerance' policy that the boy violated. She seemed to feel the need to explain that the school cannot abide any inappropriate talk of sexuality or homophobic remarks. She doesn't know me very well. I too cannot abide. I vowed the boy/brat was going to regret saying anything. A storm cloud hung over the car as I drove home from work, planning what I would say. I would be calm, even, I would not allow emotion to take over.

"YOU ARE IN SOOO MUCH TROUBLE!" I said loudly (OK, I yelled a little).

"HOW COULD YOU? I DEMANDED.

His answer was incomprehensible, he was obviously upset.

I growled at the husband who started to ask a question.

"GRRRRR!" This was my moment. Calm, even and unemotional didn't have a chance -I was raving. I circled the prey glancing back at the husband to make sure he stood back.

At some point it occurred to me that the boy was never going to understand because the husband was no better at keeping information to himself than a ten year old. The big boys can gossip way more than any women I know. So who's to blame? I handed the boy the best information he would ever learn and what did he do? He didn't just tell his friends, he screamed his knowledge out for everyone to hear at recess. This shouldn't have been a surprise.

I grounded him for the entire weekend, which lasted one day.

I grounded myself for being an idiot telling a ten year old the facts of life when he asked.

I want you so ba-a-a-ad, babe!

I want yououououou..."

The house vibrates, shakes, rattles, the voice strives to reproduce John's resonant perfection. 

But the 13 year olds vocal chords just can't reach down low enough- give it a couple of more years. Maybe by then his ear will develop and he'll notice when he sings the whole thing half a tone below the lead guitars sultry notes. The drums sound uninspired, but accompany the discord obediently.

"She's so."

(wait for it)

"Heavyyyyyyy." The harmonies are lost as the singer hits all the notes in order. By himself. Suddenly the drums are gone and it's just one voice trying to hit the high note. The ten year old leaves to make a cheese bagel for lunch. I guess the discipline thing hasn't kicked in yet, the second guitarist comes up for a snack, too.

My ears hurt, my head hurts, I'm crabby but this isn't about me it's about giving the boys a chance to be boys being a band in a basement. The ever-increasing amplifiers prove the dad gene is alive and well and festering in these young pups. Bigger will always be better -car, amplifier, other, etc and with 'it' comes increasingly more confidence.

They switch to an uneven interpretation of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams". A range of guitar effects are presented after each musical stanza, testing, annoyingly. One day they may do another garage concert for their friends and the neighbors. A proud mom may still insist on video taping all of it. A proud dad may upload it to You Tube and their legend may begin. Until then its a mere afternoon of vibrating, shaking and rattling, and plenty of pain medication.