+ Her Barefoot Heart

Tag: plans

On the First Anniversary of My Heart Alert

A smiling woman in a hospital gown surrounded by monitors and machines


Hours after acquiring 3 pieces of Heart Jewelry

When The Engineer and I first married, I laid down a rule: last one out of bed made the bed up. One year ago today was the first day my rule was broken. By me.

I lingered in bed then took a shower and washed my hair. As I made my way back to make the bed, I noticed a tug of war happening inside my body in that hollow space at the base of my throat. Unlike the pain folks must have felt on the torture racks of ancient times, I felt only discomfort. Intense discomfort, to be sure, but not excruciating pain that would’ve granted those turning the gears at both ends of the torture rack names and other information they sought. I made a silent note of this unusual sensation, filing it away in my mental file cabinet under For Future Reference, pulling the bedspread up over the pillows. The decorative throw pillows never made it to the bed that day. When the diarrhea and nausea hit simultaneously, Brain and Bones whispered in unison This. Is. Serious.”

We’d only lived on the island a short while, and to that point, not a single visitor had been able to find us via GPS. That’s why I didn’t trust the EMT’s and an ambulance to find me, and I sensed I couldn’t afford such a lengthy wait, so Andy drove me to the ER, something I’ve since given many second thoughts. How awful, I think in hindsight, it would’ve been for him to watch me die in the passenger seat.

As we pulled into the ER parking lot, I uttered my first words, directing The Engineer to forget what the signs said and listen to me when I told him to park at the curb to the left of the entrance to the door. At that moment, I really didn’t care if we inconvenienced anybody especially since we’d left the door open for others, and there was plenty of room for other vehicles to get past us. “You need to take the lead, and you definitely need to fill out the paperwork,” I said as the doors opened to let us through, “and remember to say the magic word: heart.”

A very nice man in a blue shirt greeted us, and when he heard the word “heart”, he quickly moved Andy to a seat near the door to the exam rooms, and offered a seat to me in the gen pop area of the rather crowded waiting room. I ignored him and took a chair next to Andy.

In a very few minutes, a smiling peppy woman also dressed in blue stood before me. “Can you walk?” she chirped. “I can,” I told her, “but I don’t think I should.”

“Oh, it’s not that far,” she assured me, swatting at the air. “Come on. Follow me.”

I tried, but when we passed mile marker 27, I stopped, leaned against the wall, and asked if she had a wheelchair she could summon. “Oh, we’re almost there,” she assured me waving her hand at what seemed to me an endless hallway. “We’re turning right here,” and that made me feel more optimistic . . . until we turned and I looked down another endless hallway. I stopped again, and she let me rest a few minutes before urging me on. People were waiting for me. And besides, we were almost there.

I entered room 16, and sure enough, many people were flitting around preparing for me. I was helped into one of those fashionable hospital gowns and somebody helped me climb up into the bed. It felt really good to be off my feet.

Though I don’t think I ever got his name, the hospitalist on duty that morning was one of the kindest men I’ve ever not met. As the flurry of activity happened all around him, he remained calm, smiling, and he made sure he touched my arm or held my toes (which ever was more readily available), sending reassurance through his touch. His touch was my anchor in what was becoming a very stressful, scary time.

“Stemmy in 16, Stemmy in 16,” we heard over the loud speaker. I looked at Andy and asked “Aren’t we in 16?” “Yep,” he said. “That’s you.

Minutes later the flurry of activity slowed when someone said loudly “The cardiologist is here” and people chose one side of the room or the other as a smiling man stepped inside the door, rubbing his hands together in keen anticipation and announced “Not just any cardiologist. The BEST cardiologist is here.”

Now y’all need to know that my first job as a married woman was working as an administrative assistance for the CEO of a private hospital in Atlanta where I was quickly introduced to arrogant doctors. I can’t tell you how many times I grabbed a doctor by the top shirt button, pulling them down to my eye level, and looking into their retinas saying “The only difference between you and me is the classes we took in college.” But on this particular day, Dr. Smalheiser’s words registered not as arrogance but as confidence – just what I needed to hear before turning my heart over to this stranger.

Shortly after his arrival, I was whisked down to the OR – kissing The Engineer good bye at the door, making him promise to move the car then come back and wait for me close by – and the flurry of activity began all over again in what seemed like a small, cramped room. When I left that room, it was with 3 new pieces of heart jewelry (aka stents) and though tired, I had more energy than I’d ever known.

Bubbles, Alison, and Ava Jeanne leave the hospital to begin our lives together! (Note the beautifully smocked - if I do say so myself - dress Ava Jeanne wears home. The bonnet Ava Jeanne wears was worn by her mother when she came home from the hospital.

Bubbles, Alison, and Ava Jeanne leave the hospital to begin our lives together! (Note the beautifully smocked – if I do say so myself – dress Ava Jeanne wears home. The bonnet Ava Jeanne wears was worn by her mother when she came home from the hospital.

I spent 3 days in ICU and 1 day in the Step Down unit (forget the official name), and recovery was easy, effortless. Three days after I was released (1 week after my Heart Alert) I was back in the hospital as daugher Alison’s pit crew in the birth of my newest Sprite, Ava Jeanne.

Ladies, there is no checklist that I can find for heart attacks in women. I had no radiating pain, no elephant sitting on my chest, no intense pain. Just the uncomfortable stretching sensation and the briefest of brief diarrhea and nausea. Listen to your bodies and heed their warnings. If in doubt, head to the ER . . . by ambulance (though I have another story for you about that on another day.)

I call my event not a heart attack, but a Heart Alert because it did indeed get my attention! My daughter Alison calls today my Second Chance Day, and that makes sense, too. Anyway, I spend today – the one year anniversary of getting a Second Chance from my Heart Alert – creating my Vision Board for how I want to spend the next year and beyond with a side of creating the longest Daily Gladitudes and Gratitudes List ever. My friend Rainy and I call our Vision Boards “Explosive Blessings”, and honestly I need to add a room to the house – a great big room with blank walls to hold it all. Here’s to much life ahead of us all and more goodness than we can count. I’ll share photos when my board is complete. Do you have one you’d be willing to share with. me?

Cheers. Clink, y’all.

Right this way if you want to hear Jeanne read (Remember: she’s fluent only in English and Southern!)

opening up a new year

every year about this time, i become paralyzed. people share their plans and rituals for mapping out the new year, and they all sound so elegant, so elevated, so evolved that i just shut right down and limp through new year’s day, relying on my blackeyed peas and pork and turnipgreens to do their job so all will be well. last year, i vowed to craft my plan for 2011 in september, admonishing myself to let the satisfaction of early completion outweigh – in fact, shut down – any dreaded (and perhaps inevitable) second-guessing.

though it wasn’t in september, i did start earlier this year. and i spent a goodly part of last week talking about my plans with my chicklets, alison and kipp, and my friends angela kelsey, julie daley, and sally gentle. spent even more time making notes – one item per index card to allow for shuffling and flexibility and all that jazz. and yes, i inevitably read about the invitations and visualizations and resolutions, goals, dreams, plans, strategies, stepping stones, big rocks, quadrants, etc. other people use. i even allowed myself 20 minutes to look at (okay, drool over) paper planners cause though i haven’t added to my vast collection in the past three years, i am not too proud to admit my lingering addiction to time management systems (complete with pages of teensy little ole’ lines that i can hardly see, let alone write anything on) encased in colorful, conveniently pocketed-on-the-inside binders. though i’ve tried enough products to know otherwise, i’m here to tell you: when i hold a binder in my hands, i have no trouble imagining my life playing out smoothly, efficiently, and According To Plan. i can taste it, i tell you, and it is powerful.

2011 will be fueled by my participation (and ultimate win, i’m tickled to say) in NaNoWriMo. after 3-4 years of tire kicking, i signed on the digital dotted line and publicly professed (to more than a few non-writers, admittedly, to provide a safe escape hatch should i not finish) my intention to write not the generally prescribed 1667 words a day but 2000 words a day. and though i’m not ashamed to tell you that i upped the ante on account of the fact that the over-achiever (aka teacher’s pet syndrome) in me runs deep, i am proud to say that i wrote more than 2k words every single day. which turned out to be a good thing because i lost the week of thanksgiving and still managed to finish a day early with more than 50k words. and the thing is, it felt so good – the structure, the repetition, the end-in-sight of it all – that i use that i bank on that satisfaction to lay down my tracks for 2011.

so with complete disregard for the the rightness or consideration for whether it’s noble and lofty enough, in 2011 i will:

1. move more. (not anything that involves large trucks complaining about getting in and out of our driveway, mind you. i’m talking about walking and dancing.)
2. become fluent in yoga. (one pose at a time. okay, maybe two to keep it interesting.)
3. read alice in wonderland. aloud. to myself. (starting in january)
4. finish the primary source interviews for the bank robbery book. (by 4/31/11)
5. complete (or at least cease) contextual research for the bank robbery book. (fourth quarter)
6. write 3 children’s books with my daughter. (first quarter)
7. edit the fictional book penned during nanowrimo. (second quarter)
8. attend blogher. (august)
9. meditate a minute at a time (cause let’s face it: i’ve had that beautiful silk zafu – black with golden dragons – for months now, and i just took the plastic off. which means that 20 minutes every day is highly unlikely.)
10. finish volume 1 of the book i’m compiling with my daughter. (third quarter)
11. get that new blog up. (check back tomorrow for details and a viewing!) change of plan
12. further investigate that idea i have for a digital community.
13. quit handing over my personal power.
14. get that broken tooth fixed.
15. uncover (recover?) my muchiness. (warning: this will likely involve unleashing my non-malicious irreverent self more often.)
16. look into completing certification in death education and counseling.
17. remodel our bedroom and create a guest space in nc.
18. learn more about the electronic gizmos i have (iphone 4, ipad, powerbook pro, flip camera, sony camera, livescribe echo pen) (remember apple’s newton? i had one.) and software i own so i can make my life easier through better use of technology.
19. cross-pollinate my creativity by enjoying bouts of making collages, slow cloth, and even playing the piano.
20. attend the storytelling festival in jonesborough, tn. (october)
21. trek to merion, pa to see the barnes collection in its natural and rightful habitat. (april)
22. finish papering the nc laundry room in photos (scanning each one before tacking it to the wall).
23. spend a day (or 3) in milledgeville, ga doing book research and visiting flannery o’conner’s place. (september)
24. be fiercely feminist and fiercely feminine. (there. i’ve said it out loud.) (no ned to quirm cause i’m just the And to Thelma and Louise.)
25. enjoy a monthly massage without feeling i have to earn it.
26. stop spending so many words just for the sake of saying something. (obviously, that starts tomorrow.)
27. write every. single. day. (format subject to change on a monthly basis to keep it interesting.)
28. conjure six impossible things daily before bedtime.
29. create full moon collages with jamie ridler. (jamie calls them dreamboards, but i’ll be doing them in my special collage journal cause i have authority issues, you know.)
30. pen a thank you note a day.
31. reorganize my studio in ga.
32. create walls i can write on.
33. conjure and share more stories (pronounced STO rees) of my altar girls.
34. finish up that production team handbook and the director’s checklist. (january)
35. call many of you sugar to your face.
36. sing out loud without clearing the room. (alison, this one has your name written all over it.)
37. create new e-digs for alison. (january)
38. develop a rhythm of 1 day a week or 1 week a month tending to the inevitable and necessary deskwork. (january, then maintenance throughout the year)
39. book and enjoy creative retreats with selected gal pals. (if interested, let me know.)
40. let go of those stories that just don’t fit me any more. (note: the old paper-tied-to-a-balloon trick just doesn’t work for me, so, shoot, how ’bout i invite you to my (digital) campfire and tell ’em to ya?)

conceptually speaking, in 2011 there will be:
less mass, more movement.
less accommodating, more truth telling.
less talking, more doing.
less squirming, more smiling.
less explanation, more full, deep, satisfyingly content experiencing.
less justification, more justbecause.

and because i’m such a sucker, here are my collages for 2011:

2011collage1.jpg

2011collage2.jpg

2011collage3.jpg
(note at the bottom of the page: “If we’re not supposed to dance, why all this music?” from Gregory Orr’s poem “To Be Alive“)

and my color (pay no attention to the part that says 2010). (and hey, thanks, bridget.)

and my tangible totem:

2011TangibleTotem.jpg

and last, but definitely not least, my word: ship. (thanks, kipp.)