After Shock

The aftermath of a heart attack is rather like the after shocks of an earthquake. When Mexico was hit with that large quake not long ago, and before I had my heart attack, we felt the aftershocks all the way here in Phoenix. I was sitting on my couch with my legs up, reading; my wife was at the computer. I was suddenly getting a back massage and then I remembered we don’t have a vibrating chair. My wife said, “Do you feel that?” And we both looked at the swag lamp above our dining table doing a trapeze routine.

That’s kind of how I’ve been feeling since the cardiologist placed a stent (balloon) in my coronary artery a couple of weeks ago. I’m sitting in my chair and my chest is hurting from the wire they put up there above my heart and I’m wondering if it’s my heart and should I take the nitro they prescribed me. I had heart palpitations for a complete day and I wonder if something has gone terribly wrong. Did the cardiologist leave his wristwatch or his car in my chest?

Then that balloon in my artery. Somehow that just doesn’t sound right. I’ve always had problems with balloons. Either I can’t get them blown up, or tie them properly, or they pop and spin and twirl all over the room, and I wonder if it’s possible for the balloon in my artery to pop. Will I spin and twirl all over the room?

I know who knows I had a heart attack. The ones that know don’t want to be around me. They’re possibly afraid I might have another heart attack in front of them. They either look down or the other way, or if they are caught walking by me they look at my chest, probably anticipating my heart sort of leaping out of my chest like that thing did in the movie “Alien.”

For two weeks I have been walking every day. It started with around the apartment complex one time, a quarter of a mile, a half a mile and mile and now one and a half miles. I used to walk two miles a day in less than an hour—okay maybe 58 minutes. It has taken me that long to walk one mile and when I walk up the thirteen steps—I don’t know how many steps there are, I’m just supposing there has to be thirteen the way my luck’s been going—my legs feel like I’m wearing ten pound lead weights.

The other day I walked one and a half miles in forty minutes. I was going so fast I passed a beetle like it was standing still, then an old lady with white hair passed me like I was standing still and I got all deflated. Okay,she was walking from the other direction, but still...

This might sound morbid, but I’m actually grateful I had a heart attack, even though I say to myself once in a while, “You’re fifty-nine years old and you had a heart attack.” But I’m grateful I’m alive. I’m eating better now, counting cholesterol, keeping it under eighty milligrams a day. I’ve lost almost ten pounds and the lead weights on my legs are gone. It could’ve been a lot worse. God is so good. Shalom.