All over this city I see things that remind me of Adam. The church where I was with him the week before he died, while he was talking about the future and how much all of us had to look forward to together, the fish mailbox that he liked, the restaurants he liked. The Kemah Boardwalk where he walked his dog and where he went to go to think. So many memories, all tied to this city. It feels strange to leave it. But I can bring him with me.
It was 2 years ago in April. The irony that my heart twin's name is April was not lost on me. Oh course her name is April because that's a hard month for me. It was the day before my parent's 40th wedding anniversary. My only sibling, Adam had gone out of town for a business trip and he crashed his car on the way home into the median of the highway. He was an excellent driver so we were all confused what had happened. He was transported to the hospital because his car called OnStar when all the airbags had been deployed. He was found unconscious when the EMT's transported him. The hospital personnel tried to revive him, they did CPR, but they were not able to save him. His heart has stopped. He lived 36 years and he died in about 10 minutes. The cops came to tell me at 3am. Then I had to make the worst phone call of my life, wake my parents up and tell them their only son was dead at 36 years old.
Living in the media related society we live in as soon as the accident happened I found a news cast online talking about the accident. A reporter who didn't know me was taking boringly about my brother, my dead brother. I saw pictures of my brother's car, bent up at the front with all the airbags deployed. Pictures I wish I did not see. Adam did not die from the crash. He went unconscious very quickly and died from a Widowmaker heart attack. It's the type of heart attack that is 99% fatal. You'd basically have to already be at the hospital to survive it. He had been complaining about his stomach hurting for months. He thought it was his stomach, but it wasn't. It was his heart. Heart disease presents many different ways. It also causes different symptoms in men than in women. It was Adam's LAD-Lateral Descending Artery completely blocked with plaque that caused his heart attack. Could his death had been prevented? We will never know.
When all of us hear of bad things happening in the news we are confronted with the thought of what would we do if that were us. If that were our child in that tornado in Oklahoma. What if I never see the person I loved again? We all just need to live with that thought in mind. Not with dread, but with the knowledge that none of us knows when our last day will be. So don't put things off. Don't wait until tomorrow to make that phone call. Write that letter you have been meaning to write. Call your parents and tell them you appreciate every sacrifice they have made for you. Kiss your kids every chance you get. Don't go to bed mad. Read that book again for the 400th time to your child. Because life is fleeting and we're only here a short time.
When you have been in the Operating room as many times as I have been in there you realize how complicated our bodies are. We all have the same parts. But yet all of us are different. We all have different configurations of things. Some of us were born missing parts, or with extra ones. It's all pretty amazing really when you think about it. Because all of these complicated things an systems work together in unison. Except when they don't.
My dad had the same artery blocked as my brother. He got regular checkups and had a triple bypass almost 5 years ago. They saved his life. Most of the men in my family have been affected by heart disease. My Grandfather died of congestive heart failure, my uncle died of a heart attack, my other uncle had a bypass, and my brother died at 36. I am the only girl in the mix. I am alive because I fought for my life. I went to the surgeons. I did the tests. I was proactive about my health. I researched my options. We made the decisions that we needed to make. I get to live.
The problem I had with my heart wasn't because of plaque or blocked arteries. My problem was an electrical problem in my heart. My heart essentially was always in fight or flight mode. Always running super fast. I didn't know normal people don't hear their heart beating in their ears, or feel every beat of their heart. It was kind of lonely at first. I wasn't used to my heart being quiet. I'm still trying to get used to it. But I am so grateful I have the surgeons I've had that saved my life. That gave me the chance to go home to my kids. So yeah I'm pretty passionate about heart disease.
Sometimes you have to save yourself. Your issue might not be with your heart. It might be something else. But listen to yourself. Pay attention. Get regular checkups. Don't ignore things and let them go.
Heart disease has been my family's legacy. It doesn't have to be yours.
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| Jenny |
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