MATTERS OF THE HEART
I returned home after the first one week residential on Friday 25th March 2017. A friend I have adventured with for 40 years came to stay. Just after midnight on Thursday March 31st 2017 I woke up in pain and had three consecutive thoughts
I'm having a heart attack
I could die
Who's going to look after my nephew
I'm having a heart attack
I could die
Who's going to look after my nephew
Matters of the Heart Saturday, 21 May 2016
I always spoke of not being afraid of death itself so much as the manner in which I would live out my last years and the nature of my death. But had no experience on which to base these sentiments. There was no fear. It was more like intrigue.
I turned on my phone and Googled 'heart attack', read an American Women's blog and decided my first thought was probably not correct.
Took a paracetamol, dozed.
Two and a half hours later, after another paracetamol and another doze I was in no doubt that my first thought was correct and rang 999.
It was a surreal experience, I didn't feel connected to what was happening in my body. The pain was so intense that when I tried to get up and do what I was being told to do I lost consciousness and fell to the floor. When I came around I knew I'd have to wake my friend who was asleep in the guest room. However, I was concerned about how she would feel being woken up under such circumstances, about her ability to take it in and having to cope with it after all she had been through caring for her own father and having experienced some shocking things in hospital treatment.
How bizarre! She was amazing of course!
First response arrived.
Helped down the stairs, lying on the sofa, heart attack confirmed, morphine kicking in, pain beyond description, sticky patches all over my chest.
I remember giving orders!
My feet are cold – I need my slippers
Bring my bag
Bring my mobile phone
Bring my charger
Ring my older sister
The thoughts -
My older sis will kill me if I wake her up at this hour in the morning
She will kill me if I die and haven't woken her up
Don't ring my younger sis, she has work in the morning and will panic
Don't tell my nephew
By now – three men in my home, blue lights flashing outside my window, everyone concerned. Disjointed memories of ambulance journey and A&E. Lots of people rushing around. A sense of urgency, emergency.
Coming round – a machine above me, words floating to me through the plastic sheeting from an ethereal being. 'How are you now Elizabeth?'
There's no pain. The relief. Nothing else mattered – no pain.
Blockage removed and two stents. Good as new.
I spent three days in hospital – they're not places of healing. They're noisy and busy and the wonderful staff are so rushed off their feet they can barely do other than medicate and check you.
A poem I wrote in the dark of a sleepless night
I always spoke of not being afraid of death itself so much as the manner in which I would live out my last years and the nature of my death. But had no experience on which to base these sentiments. There was no fear. It was more like intrigue.
I turned on my phone and Googled 'heart attack', read an American Women's blog and decided my first thought was probably not correct.
Took a paracetamol, dozed.
Two and a half hours later, after another paracetamol and another doze I was in no doubt that my first thought was correct and rang 999.
It was a surreal experience, I didn't feel connected to what was happening in my body. The pain was so intense that when I tried to get up and do what I was being told to do I lost consciousness and fell to the floor. When I came around I knew I'd have to wake my friend who was asleep in the guest room. However, I was concerned about how she would feel being woken up under such circumstances, about her ability to take it in and having to cope with it after all she had been through caring for her own father and having experienced some shocking things in hospital treatment.
How bizarre! She was amazing of course!
First response arrived.
Helped down the stairs, lying on the sofa, heart attack confirmed, morphine kicking in, pain beyond description, sticky patches all over my chest.
I remember giving orders!
My feet are cold – I need my slippers
Bring my bag
Bring my mobile phone
Bring my charger
Ring my older sister
The thoughts -
My older sis will kill me if I wake her up at this hour in the morning
She will kill me if I die and haven't woken her up
Don't ring my younger sis, she has work in the morning and will panic
Don't tell my nephew
By now – three men in my home, blue lights flashing outside my window, everyone concerned. Disjointed memories of ambulance journey and A&E. Lots of people rushing around. A sense of urgency, emergency.
Coming round – a machine above me, words floating to me through the plastic sheeting from an ethereal being. 'How are you now Elizabeth?'
There's no pain. The relief. Nothing else mattered – no pain.
Blockage removed and two stents. Good as new.
I spent three days in hospital – they're not places of healing. They're noisy and busy and the wonderful staff are so rushed off their feet they can barely do other than medicate and check you.
A poem I wrote in the dark of a sleepless night
So I was glad to be home.
I then had time and peace to start the process of really looking at and feeling what had happened. Some thoughts:
Dying that way would be quick and easy – into oblivion?
There was nothing there – but perhaps I didn't get close enough.
Thinking of other peoples feelings – defense or inherent? It is who I am but is it detrimental?
I wish I'd died – life is the same – too hard.
Why me? I'm fit, I eat fairly healthily, don't smoke, don't drink.
Life really is so precarious.
The process of recovery is best described in my poetry over the next few weeks
I then had time and peace to start the process of really looking at and feeling what had happened. Some thoughts:
Dying that way would be quick and easy – into oblivion?
There was nothing there – but perhaps I didn't get close enough.
Thinking of other peoples feelings – defense or inherent? It is who I am but is it detrimental?
I wish I'd died – life is the same – too hard.
Why me? I'm fit, I eat fairly healthily, don't smoke, don't drink.
Life really is so precarious.
The process of recovery is best described in my poetry over the next few weeks
I didn't feel like myself.
I was drowning in an intense feeling of the unfairness that I did not die.
That I had to continue.
I was reading 'the places that scare me' by pema chodron.
In Chapter 16 she describes three kinds of laziness:
Comfort Orientation
Loss of Heart
Couldn't care less
And advises to sit and experience these and be curious about these states and ask “Why am I suffering? Why does nothing lighten up? Why do my dissatisfaction and boredom get stronger year by year?”
These questions resonated as did the laziness Loss of Heart. So I read on (my words/interpretation) – I have to look at this honestly, directly, get to know and experience it with awareness.To get to know intimately the stories I tell myself to keep me in this place of fear, resentment and guilt.
So I sat and looked and acknowledged my fear of life.
Then I let go.
I felt a lightening, an optimism, a way out of the gloom.
An appreciation of all the wonder in my life.
I felt the glimmer of joy and excited anticipation in continuing the service of love, loving kindness, gratitude, compassion and equanimity for myself and others.
An excitement for the long and winding road ahead of me.
In amongst all this my nephew is coming into his own.
He has taken my request seriously that he try to take responsibility for his own life.
I was drowning in an intense feeling of the unfairness that I did not die.
That I had to continue.
I was reading 'the places that scare me' by pema chodron.
In Chapter 16 she describes three kinds of laziness:
Comfort Orientation
Loss of Heart
Couldn't care less
And advises to sit and experience these and be curious about these states and ask “Why am I suffering? Why does nothing lighten up? Why do my dissatisfaction and boredom get stronger year by year?”
These questions resonated as did the laziness Loss of Heart. So I read on (my words/interpretation) – I have to look at this honestly, directly, get to know and experience it with awareness.To get to know intimately the stories I tell myself to keep me in this place of fear, resentment and guilt.
So I sat and looked and acknowledged my fear of life.
Then I let go.
I felt a lightening, an optimism, a way out of the gloom.
An appreciation of all the wonder in my life.
I felt the glimmer of joy and excited anticipation in continuing the service of love, loving kindness, gratitude, compassion and equanimity for myself and others.
An excitement for the long and winding road ahead of me.
In amongst all this my nephew is coming into his own.
He has taken my request seriously that he try to take responsibility for his own life.
And a little story.
My dear friend Séamus, came to stay with me during my recovery.
He enabled me to go to my Quaker Meeting only a week after being discharged from hospital.
On our way to Meeting he told me of an Irish phrase 'Tog go Bog e'.
It's modern translation is, in saying goodbye to a friend, 'Take it easy'.
It's literal translation is 'Take it softly'.
It touched me deeply and I shared it that day.
So I share it with you now.
Take it softly.
My dear friend Séamus, came to stay with me during my recovery.
He enabled me to go to my Quaker Meeting only a week after being discharged from hospital.
On our way to Meeting he told me of an Irish phrase 'Tog go Bog e'.
It's modern translation is, in saying goodbye to a friend, 'Take it easy'.
It's literal translation is 'Take it softly'.
It touched me deeply and I shared it that day.
So I share it with you now.
Take it softly.