Swimming in the Sink Page 9

  He said I could go but that I needed to make sure to get a travel bag with wheels. He said that I had to make sure not to lift the bag into the overhead bin because the penetration site for the angiogram could open and start bleeding. He said if that happened to apply heavy pressure to the site and hold it until you get medical attention. He also advised me to get up and walk around the aircraft to make sure I didn’t get a blood clot.

  If something went wrong during the trip, did he have colleagues he could refer me to? He told me to call him if I had any problems. He would be able to refer me to cardiologists in New York City. He needed to make his rounds, but he would stop by before I left to make sure everything was okay. The nurse would be in soon with discharge papers.

  I called Joe to let him know I was going home. He couldn’t understand how a world-class athlete could have an ejection fraction of only fifteen to twenty. He wondered why my heart cells weren’t firing in sequence.

  “Could it be from the cardiomyopathy?”

  “Yes, your heart is stretched out of shape; the cells are not in their normal position in the heart and they aren’t able to fire in their normal sequence. That makes sense. You just need to get your heart back to its normal shape. The meds will take the load off so it will rest, but there’s more you can do. I need to do some research and get back to you,” he said.

  “Sounds good.”

  “What are you doing next?”

  “Going home and sleeping.”

  “Can you call me or text me when you’re home so I know you’re there safely?”

  “Yes, thank you, Joe. You’re a great friend.”

  “Is there anything else you want to talk about before you head home?” he asked. There was one thing that had been really bothering me.

  I told Joe about a friend who had come to visit, and how she was angry with me for not letting her know what was wrong.

  He said that she was afraid for me. When people are sick, their loved ones are struggling with the illness too. He said that I needed to be gentle with her and reassure her that I was going to be okay. That would help her be less afraid.

  I changed into my street clothes and sat on the edge of the bed and waited to be discharged.

  A nurse walked into the room and removed the IV from my hand. She held my hand, pressed the incision site firmly with gauze, and stuck a Band-Aid on top. She continued holding my hand. She said she was praying for me.

  I thanked her and she said she prayed I would survive.

  She looked somber.

  I asked her why she was praying for me.

  “Your EF is only twelve to fifteen. Most people with an ejection fraction that low die. I’m praying that God will keep you alive,” she said.

  “Thank you for your prayers,” I said. But I thought, As a nurse she wasn’t supposed to tell me that.

  Dr. Rawal returned to the room. He said he needed to listen to my heart one more time before I could go. He smiled and said my heart was beating slower and the meds were working.

  I wasn’t sure if I should say anything, but what the nurse told me really troubled me.

  I told him what the nurse said to me.

  “Your ejection fraction is low,” he agreed.

  It seemed surreal to ask him this, but I had to.

  “Can I expect to live a month or two or should I plan to live longer?”

  He touched my shoulder and said, “You should plan on living longer.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  He gave me hope. I could do a lot with that. Hope was what I used to carry me across vast channels. Hope was what allowed me to find the possible within the impossible. Hope was what gave me the courage to reach deeper and try harder and reach distant shores.

  10

  DECEMBER 22—DRIFTING AWAY

  The next afternoon, friends and a couple of neighbors walked with me to the end of Seal Beach Pier. The wind was gusting, puffy white clouds were sailing across an aqua blue sky. The sun was strong. The sea was in motion, vibrant and alive.

  My siblings and their partners gathered on the beach, put on wet suits, and swam parallel to the pier with our mom’s and Cody’s ashes.

  I leaned into the cold wind and waited at the end of the pier for the ceremony to start.

  My mom would have loved this blustery day. She would have loved to compose an abstract painting using the colors of sea, the pure white of the surf, the colors of the sun, clouds, and bright fishermen’s clothes on the pier. She would have loved sketching the fluid shapes of the moving water and incorporating textures in the waves, sand, wooden pier, and sky. She loved listening to the music of the ocean and the voices of family and friends.

  A friend handed me a long-stemmed dark red rose. It reminded me of Mom, so beautiful and deep.

  I looked at the ocean. She loved water. She loved to swim and gave me her love of water and her love of life. I missed her so much. And I missed Cody.

  My siblings and their partners swam beyond Seal Beach Pier and formed a circle. They released Cody’s ashes and then they released our mother’s ashes.

  There were bits of conversations carried to us on the pier, and laughter. We watched the family sip merlot from a bottle and pass it around the circle. I thanked God for my mom, and all that she had given me in my life. I tossed the red rose into the ocean. It fell and floated on silvery blue waves and bobbed in the sunlight.

  My heart was breaking.

  “Good-bye, Cody. Good-bye, Mom. I will always love you,” I whispered.

  The wind blew my tears into the ocean toward the ashes.

  I hoped they were okay.

  11

  DECEMBER 23—IN THE ARMS OF FRIENDS

  After saying good-bye, friends drove me home, and I went to bed. I wasn’t feeling well. My siblings arrived later with extended family and friends. It had been my home, but everything had changed. My siblings had started sorting through the things they would take and they would soon be leaving.

  Cindy Palin dropped by to see how I was doing. She took one look at me and said, “Pack your bags, you’re coming home with me.” She knew I was planning to spend Christmas with Laura and Charlie and then leave for New York City. She told me to pack a second bag so I could leave from Laura’s for New York. She would plan on picking me up at the airport when I returned.

  She carried my bags to the car and into the guest room at her home and told me to rest while she made dinner for us. She gave me a hug, and I fought back the tears.

  “Cindy, I’m afraid I might die,” I said.

  Cindy looked shocked and afraid, but she regained her composure and reminded me how far I’d come. Two days ago I was in dire straits, and now I was better. She told me to give the medications time to work. Dr. Rawal did not know me like she did. He did not know what I was capable of achieving.

  “You’ve swum in Antarctica in just a swimsuit in thirty-two-degree water. I don’t know anyone else in the world who could do that.”

  “I don’t know anyone else who would want to,” I joked.

  She told me to put my feet up and rest.

  I was weary to the bone. She knew what I was feeling. She had cared for her mother, grandmother, and aunt. Within a few months she lost them all.

  I fell asleep and dreamed that Cindy and I had a slumber party and her grandmother came to visit us. She wanted to make sure we were happy and strong, and she reminded us to enjoy each day. She said she couldn’t stay long; she had to return to heaven to visit with my mom.

  When I woke up I realized I hadn’t called Joe. I needed to touch base with him and listen to his suggestions. He had been badly injured a number of times during his career as a firefighter, and he had seen his buddies suffer from physical and mental trauma. Through those experiences, Joe learned how to recover and how to support his friends during their recoveries. His knowledge wasn’t theoretical. It was something he learned by going through the process himself.

  He reminded me of my Olympic swimming coach. He knew when to
support and encourage, and when to push.

  He was strong and certain, and I felt weak and indecisive.

  He explained that I had been in a crisis situation and I was making a transition. I needed to change my inner dialogue—the things I was telling myself were negative. I needed to change and talk to myself in a positive way.

  My negative thinking had produced stress hormones that affected my heart. I needed to think positive and be happy so my heart would heal.

  He said the connection between my heart and mind was incredibly strong. That connection allowed me to accomplish extraordinary physical and mental feats. Things no one else could imagine or do. The mind-body connection that I had developed was rare. I had used a positive mind-set to achieve my goals, but somehow my thinking pattern had changed. I needed to purge the negative thoughts, rewire my mind, and focus on a positive outcome for my heart.

  The things he said made sense, and the way he told me what he thought was delivered gently, and I knew he was doing all he could to support me.

  I didn’t want to be negative, but I told him that I felt so weak, depleted, and vulnerable. Whatever anyone said to me, I took to heart. And that amplified my emotional response.

  It was difficult to be positive when I felt awful. I wasn’t accustomed to feeling like this and couldn’t shake the negative thoughts.

  Joe told me I needed to focus on what I could do and the things that were working. He reminded me of the channels I had crossed and the things I had achieved. He asked me questions about what I had done, things I had never written or spoken about, so I would focus on the memories and tell him the things I had done to overcome huge obstacles and achieve those goals. He told me to focus on those experiences and remember who I was so I would find myself again.

  Joe’s voice became soft. “Do you know what heals the human heart?” he asked.

  “What heals the human heart?” I asked him.

  “Love,” he said.

  My eyes filled with tears. That was it. That was what this part of my life’s journey was about. It was love. Love from the people who loved me and the people I loved. Love was what healed the human heart. It was what was healing my heart.

  12

  THE GIFT

  It was the first Christmas Eve I would spend without my mom. In the later years of her life, I made Christmas dinner and we celebrated with friends, or we joined Laura and Charlie for their family gathering. I couldn’t help but think about my mom.

  Christmas was her favorite holiday. She grew up in a family that began wrapping their Christmas gifts in June. She had five aunts, two uncles, and grandparents who owned a design store in Waterville, Maine. They sold wallpaper, paint, and fabric and designed interiors and exteriors of homes and offices.

  They used the remnants to decorate the packages, and as soon as Christmas was over, they began thinking about what they would give one another the next Christmas and how they would design the packages.

  My mom lived for Christmas. She loved to decorate our home, tree, and presents. She loved to sit beside the tree and just look at it.

  It was strange. I wouldn’t be home. She wouldn’t be watching me cook and advising me on the best way to make her special recipes. She wasn’t there to laugh with me.

  But I was with Laura and Charlie and we were making seven desserts for Christmas Eve. We would be driving to Howard’s, Laura’s brother’s, home to have dinner with the family.

  We baked and talked all day. Each time the oven opened, the kitchen was filled with waves of warmth and smells of chocolate, cinnamon, roasted raisins, toasted walnuts, nutmeg, baked almonds, vanilla, and cardamom.

  When the last dessert was in the oven, I sat down in a recliner and put my feet up.

  Charlie walked over to me and asked, “Are you okay?”

  I was happy and just relaxing for a moment before we started frosting the cake. “I’m a little tired,” I admitted.

  “You look better than you did a couple days ago,” he said.

  “No one looks good in those hospital gowns,” I said.

  “You’re right.” He grinned.

  Just being with them made me happy and that made me feel better.

  “Laura has something she wants to tell you,” he said.

  “We’ve done a lot of research and we think you have broken heart syndrome.”

  Dr. Rawal said that my heart problem was idiopathic—its cause was unknown. But Laura and Charlie thought they had discovered what I had.

  “The American Heart Association says that broken heart syndrome is caused by an emotionally stressful event. It can be caused by the death of a loved one, a divorce, a romantic rejection, a breakup, a physical separation, or a betrayal. Your mom’s death and releasing her ashes were stressful for you,” Laura said.

  She didn’t know that there were two more stressors that affected my heart. A friend whom I was interested in told me he was seeing someone else, and another friend was moving away. He had a new job and I didn’t know if I would ever see him again. It seemed like my life was only about loss. Life was too sad.

  “When someone has broken heart syndrome, part of the heart suddenly enlarges due to extreme stress. Dr. Rawal found that the ventricle in the lower part of your heart was enlarged. The Japanese doctor who discovered broken heart syndrome called it takotsubo cardiomyopathy. ‘Takotsubo’ is the Japanese word fishermen use for octopus traps. The octopus traps’ shape resembles the enlarged ventricle,” Charlie explained, and drew a heart on a napkin that showed the enlarged ventricle and then he drew an octopus trap. They looked the same.

  Charlie said the other symptoms of broken heart syndrome were arrhythmias and cardiogenic shock.

  “What is cardiogenic shock?” I asked.

  “Cardiogenic shock is a condition that occurs when a weakened heart can’t pump enough blood to meet the body’s need. That’s what happened to you. Your heart was too weak to pump blood effectively.”

  “It was an emergency situation, like a heart attack?” I asked.

  “Yes. With broken heart syndrome some people have a sudden intense pain in the chest caused by a surge of stress hormones, and it can feel like a heart attack. But you didn’t experience this symptom.”

  “It’s a good thing you sent me to see a cardiologist,” I said.

  Laura and Charlie shifted uncomfortably.

  “We talked about it and think it may have been better to send you to emergency, but we wanted you to be seen by someone we knew.”

  “Dr. Rawal took good care of me. I’m glad you referred me to him,” I said.

  “I don’t think you would be alive if you hadn’t seen him,” Laura said with tightness in her voice. “I hope you don’t mind, but I called another friend who is a cardiologist to confirm Dr. Rawal’s treatment.”

  She said her cardiologist friend was about to retire. I had met him at one of Laura’s dinner parties. He invented a part for the medical device that was used for angiograms. He told Laura he agreed with Dr. Rawal’s treatment method and that giving me medications that made my heart rest would allow it to heal.

  “The best news is that you can completely recover from broken heart syndrome,” Laura said.

  I never thought I would be happy to have a broken heart, but now I was. I took a deep breath.

  “Do you think I will recover?” I asked.

  “I’m sure you will. You agree, don’t you, Charlie?” Laura asked.

  “I do. I think she will fully recover,” he said.

  “What an amazing gift you have given me this Christmas,” I said to them. I felt a new sense of gratitude and a deeper sense of love for them and for my friends. I realized how fortunate I was to have their love and support.

  Laura and Charlie had been thinking a lot about my condition and they said that I needed to reduce my stress.

  They decided to take me to a meditation course at UCLA, so I could learn new ways to meditate and reduce my stress, and they said they were available for me anytime. />
  13

  CHRISTMAS EVE AT HOWARD’S

  We drove to Howard’s to celebrate Christmas Eve. Family and friends were arriving in small groups, and everyone was dressed up for the celebration.

  Adults I had known as children were holding their children on their laps. The children’s eyes were bright and they were so excited it was Christmas. They couldn’t wait to open gifts. The adults felt their energy and excitement too. Everyone was happy.

  Love was simmering in the kitchen, and it smelled delicious. There were seven fishes being prepared: calamari cooking in a pot of red wine, garlic, onion, and tomato sauce; anchovies baking in bread rolls in the oven; baccalà, salted codfish in spicy red pepper tomato sauce simmering in a deep saucepan; king salmon sprinkled with olive oil, parsley, and lemon baking in the oven; and a tray of shiny sardines in oil, thin slices of bright orange lox, and pickled herring with onions, vinegar, and sugar being arranged on platters.

  On a side table was a platter of heirloom tomatoes and burrata cheese, bowls of black and green olives and sweet and dill pickles, slices of yellow cheddar and white provolone cheese, tortilla chips, fresh guacamole, salsa, ruffled potato chips, and onion dip. There were trays of fresh chopped carrots, celery, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes and ranch dressing.

  On another table were Christmas cookies—stars, Santa Clauses, and reindeers sprinkled with bright red, white, and green sugar—and thick-frosted cakes and glistening pies.

  Everything looked exquisite and smelled delicious. I wanted to try a little of everything like I always did at Christmas. But everything was full of salt, especially the baccalà.

  It was depressing. I couldn’t have what I wanted to eat. But I thought, What’s more important, eating what you want or keeping your heart healthy?

  I needed to think about food in a different way. I needed to figure out what I could eat and enjoy it, rather than focusing on what I couldn’t have. I could eat the baked salmon; I loved salmon. I could eat the raw vegetables—the cooked vegetables had been salted and I had no idea how much salt had been added. The cheeses, chips, dips, and olives were full of salt. I could shell the raw walnuts and eat them, and I could eat the fresh fruit for dessert. I would adjust.