Heartfelt Blues

I would love to jump up and down and say that I'm a survivor who survived a major life event, exclaim to the world how my struggle has made me stronger and given me insurmountable courage, and even offer a vivid explanation of my survivor techniques. But this is not the case. Rather I sit here, a little numb, and ponder what my next treatment will be and think about the loneliness I have experienced.

Prior to my heart event, I was known by my friends and family as woman of tremendous strength—a person who requires little support and can easily pick herself up and dust herself off in a blink of an eye. But I have changed, and as I wait for the outcome of tests, I have come to know my mortality. I realize that although I feel invincible at times, I am not—I am human.

I still have that indomitable strength, but what I have usually given others—I must now save some for myself. My friends and family respond in fear and they have distanced themselves from me as they anxiously await my outcome. In my efforts to support them, I don't reach for them in my time of need and I am lonely and afraid. The experience as a heart patient is new to me. I was completely unprepared on how I would travel this journey and never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would be alone.

The struggle remains difficult and uncannily without much pain. But each day I encounter a somewhat new obstacle—see, today I was feeling well, then tired, and now nauseous. Believe it or not, it is the good days that I seem to struggle with emotional turmoil.

I question, how long am I going to feel this good? Will my health/heart get better? Will I continue to survive or will I deteriorate? It's my goal to live day by day. Take the day's strength and move forward, but most times my “feel good episodes” don't last a day. Then I'm reduced to living moment by moment. And people don't understand how I can be capable of feeling a rush of tremendous strength and within hours I am tired and need to relax. It makes planning activities arduous, and friends and families inpatient.

I get tired of folks minimizing my struggle to a battle of old age. Few take the time to validate my struggle, which makes me wrought with loneliness even though I'm around many friends and family. I am sure my illness scares my family; it seems that as I trudge through this heart disease my family's fear increases.