They say that life can change in the blink of an eye, the skip of a heartbeat. It took longer than that. Life was ticking along just fine, when life itself took a side swipe, knocked me off balance. Nothing I could do but go with the flow and try not to be swept out to sea.
A&E on Friday night is noisy with frustration as clocks tick slower than they have ever tocked before. Alcohol fuelled tension keeps everyone on edge. My heart was doing its own thing, dancing away to a new tune. It was enjoying its liberation. After two days it was time to get someone in authority to rein it in. Medication prescribed to sedate this errant heart brought it under control. Success within hours. False sense of security, that’s all.
The problem with your heart abdicating its duty is the knock-on effect. Layman’s explanation – the irregular beat stirs up debris nestling in the heart’s bottom chambers. When heart gets back to work, it merrily pushes this crud around in the blood flow. And that means you are at risk of stroke. This has all been carefully explained to me, aspirin a daily reminder.
Saturday evening placebo TV strobes in the background, laughing happy people interspersed with blasts of adverts. I glance over to my husband of many years to see if now is the right time to cajole him to change channel, turn down the volume, anything to dampen Metallica gigging in my head, headache chasing round and round the cavern that houses my currently spinning brain. I can’t see him properly. It’s like looking through a heavily smoked pane of glass, dark grey obscuring his face. Oh fuck. Visual disturbance. Dizziness. Headache. These are the signs of that stroke they keep warning me about.
‘Brian’ I say. ‘I think we have a problem’.
Oh gosh - I don't love what I can see coming - but I do love your writing style