I broke my heart in 2018, not from a lost love, but because it really broke.
Have you ever broken a bone? My sister broke her leg on the ski slopes once. I was skiing right next to her on the same slope, yet my leg did not break.
She was taken to the hospital in a nearby Colorado town. There, a doctor set her leg in a cast to heal and said, “You’ll be good as new in six weeks.”
If you break your heart, the doctor can fix some things, but you’re not quite as good as new. The “fix” is often a tiny little stent inserted into your artery while in a “Cath Lab” at the hospital.
I have two; some people have four or five. I met a guy once who has nine.
I joined the ranks of fixed repaired hearts on a sunny Saturday in February. It was my birthday, and I was terrified because when they said heart attack, I was sure I would die.
When you get this kind of fix, somehow you believe your heart will go back to normal, but with many of us heart patients, there’s damage. Even though that artery is working, it is not back to full capacity.
The phrase “new normal” was bantered around like a volleyball. I began to cry. A soft-spoken cardiac nurse said, “What’s wrong?”
I blubbered, “I don’t know what to do. I had a heart attack and it was fixed, but I don’t feel like it! I want to feel normal but I don’t!”
If I could have stomped my foot I would. I was pissed off.
I honestly thought that while he lived with us, we’d eat dinner together, sit around and watch TV or movies, and talk about everything like the old days. But his disposition is markedly changed; he’s nauseous, cranky, and despondent. I desperately want to help him feel better and offer to make him breakfast on this particular cool fall morning.
He’s just shuffling back to the guest bedroom where he’s living. And I know he will shut the door.
I really want to hug him this day. I really want to feed him, talk to him, get his blankie, or do any of the mom things that are coming to me…. Instead, I just see the back of his bald head.
And then I saw it. My hands fly to my mouth to cover my gasp. At the base of his neck right at the beginning of the back hairline is the mark of the forceps from his birth. I always noticed it when he was a baby and felt he was forever marked by the brutal instrument doctors used at that time to pull babies from their mother’s womb.
It looked like four red dots, a mark like a chicken might make if you took its claw print. Tim’s hair had covered this for decades, now it’s visible and it puts me into a new state of sadness.
My son, my beloved most treasured son, has cancer; he’s suffered every measure of torture from the pain in his gut which gave the first sign to the 6 drug cocktail he’s given in his vein every other week. Then a periodic lumbar puncture to test his bone marrow and gallons of blood drawn over the three years of his treatment.
He’s one of the few people I’ve known his entire life and I love him like I love my own life ….and he stands with his back to me, an angry, sullen and sick person and I can see the evidence of his birth.
I cry all day. I pray. I ask my friends to pray. I see a therapist. After six sessions and some drugs, I get through it. Better yet, HE gets through it.
In March 2010, his cancer journey ends as Doctors pronounce him in remission. He begins to pick up the pieces of his life.
Of course, I’m grateful for his recovery, his life, and for his renewed enthusiasm to help others. He is an avid healthy lifestyle proponent, a writer sharing his cancer journey and his love of running. I’m grateful he’s in my life and that he’s my son.
I’m proud when I hear my son say he’s kicked cancer’s butt. He likes to quip; “People often say it’s good to see you! I answer with it’s good to be seen!” Seven years ago I wasn’t so sure I’d be seen again. But I kicked cancer’s butt and I say yes, it’s good to be seen. Yep, that’s my boy.
Your words are helping me understand and accept my own broken heart. I’m still angry and don’t like feeling this way. I try to “just be”. It’s a practice. Like life.
Thank you, Susan. 😘