Reality Check

Our wedding

Six months after my husband and I were married, he narrowly missed having a heart attack. An angioplasty and 3 stents later, he was (more or less) good as new. It was a scare and a shock and afterwards I was all over his food intake and his exercise regime. And time passed. We went through our battle with infertility, he closed a business and opened a new one. I was pregnant with twins. We said goodbye to our little one-bedroom by the beach and hello to a larger home to accommodate our expanding family. Life moved on. Deaths, births, fights, apologies, sleepless nights, vacations, birthdays, tears, laughter, shared moments. Lots of love. 

a vacation after the first surgery

On Wednesday last week, almost 5 years to the date of his first heart surgery, he experienced another episode. The symptoms were different this time; at first he thought it was overexertion at the gym, then indigestion. But, frankly, he looked and felt like shit and I rushed him to the hospital. All the way I held his hand; it was cold and clammy. I tried to just concentrate on driving but couldn't help thinking that something must be terribly wrong. Yet I couldn't believe something could happen to my 39-year old husband. 


The next few hours are a bit of blur. EKGs, tears, phone calls, requests for information, frustration, confusion, questions, blood tests, wondering if the fact that he was pushed to the front of the line for an angiogram was a good thing or a bad sign. More waiting, more calls, more anxiety, a brief smile because Julie Kavner (ie: Marge Simpson) was TAWKing loudly into a cell phone next to me, bare bones information from a doctor and then the words, "your husband has had a heart attack".


I didn't hear much after that. He was alive. That was all I cared about. Half my brain was trying to calculate how I was going to get home to get the kids to sleep and settled down, and half my brain was trying to process what had happened and how we were going to handle what comes next. 


The last 4 days have been hell. I am scared and exhausted and stretched too thin; my mind tends to skip ahead to what ifs. I also find it hard to ask for help and am just so overwhelmed that I don't even know what to ask for even though everyone I know has offered (and then I feel guilty because I'm not letting people help me). Mostly, the last few days have been so hard because my husband means the world to me and to our kids and the thought of losing him is just incomprehensible. 

my love

So bear with me these next few weeks. I may post a few guest posts just so there is not complete silence here. I will hopefully keep writing on a regular basis while we go through this....I know I need to. Writing has always helped me process things. 


For now, I just want to remind all of you reading this that even when your partner is doing everything "wrong" or is frustrating or doesn't "get it"...remember how fragile life is and how very easily it could all be taken away. Leave no words of love left unsaid and remember that you are incredibly lucky for all that you have been given. 


Thank you for reading!
-Gina
The Twin Coach

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