Passage of Time
Recently I have felt relaxed, almost cocky, that we are almost two years out from my husband having a stroke and that he was out of the woods. He was clear, possibly, from having more complications, a larger stroke, or lord forbid a heart attack. If you have read my piece on how I canceled our wedding, to the piece on love and stroke aftercare, you know this journey has been literally a labor of love. We finally got together and our world fell apart. He was in tears, I was trying to hold it together for him, we were barely living due to the fear of something bigger happening with his health.
See the links below to catch up on how this is all going.
https://www.elephantjournal.com/2021/11/a-wedding-a-stroke-a-love-story-debbie-ealer/
We still ate healthily, we are walking together though not far due to his leg still dragging, we did everything the doctors told us, and then it happened. We went to his regularly scheduled appointment and we were feeling happy and BAM! His O2 was way too low, they rushed in the portable EKG machine and hooked him up quickly. My heart fell to the floor. The small EKG was ok but it only measured five minutes. Lord have mercy on me as I lose it and started the tears. He was suddenly at the highest risk of a heart attack and I cried and cried. We have come so far forward from the stroke and we were thrown violently back into this chaos of the stroke. I could hear my pulse in my ears and my heart racing. I knew I could not lose this man I loved so deeply.
We both made it out of the appointment. We are going in now once a month to monitor and if his heart races or jumps we are calling 911. The next step will be for him to wear a heart monitor for a little while and do a basically longer EKG. The next step for me is to stop crying. It comes and goes really, but my heart sunk when they rushed in to make sure his heart did not stop. This love, the enduring, do anything for you kind, where you are all in, this love we have engulfs my heart and I realize I choose him every day, and him me, I also realize that my heart would shatter without him.
Life has been challenging, with medical, bills, trying to get him on disability, med management, and on and on. Life has thrown us some really hard curveballs, but if I stop crying, if I can give my anxiety a rest, and focus on just being present with him, just sharing feelings together, and constantly having open communication, well then when I lose him I will truly know I did all I could. I made his life happier. I spent the time we had deep listening to what he has to say. I will know that not a moment of this precious time we have was wasted. I will know I gave my whole heart and I will know I loved wholly.
This life has taught me to be present. To stay off my phone, to talk to people instead of texting. It has taught me that instead of coming up with my response to someone, I needed to focus on listening. I was rushing through my life that I was missing the purpose of it. I am a firm believer in having a community of people around. I believe it takes a village to raise a kid. And I believe that I have been given a gift and you have to.
We have been given the gift of knowing our time with loved ones and friends is fleeting. The good news is that we can now focus on being present, putting down our phone to really talk to someone, to actually tune out everything else and just listen, be present, and truly connect with the community. I truly believe that life is short, even though sometimes it seems honestly longer than we would like, but when we are present in our lives in every aspect of it, well that my friend is a gift we can all have!
