There has been alot going on, things that make you stop and reflect. Amidst all this reflection, I am faced with a decision. If you read this blog regularly, you know that I have a condition called Atrial Fib. My heart is out of rhythm. Its been that way for several years now. After lots of testing, it was determined that I had severe sleep apnea, and that is what has caused it. So, I sleep with a CPAP machine every night, and the Atrial Fib has come and gone. In recent months, its has come, and it has stayed. My cardiologist has wanted to take several courses of action, but several factors have stopped me. No insurance for one. But there are other reasons as well. And, I’ve been told that for the most part, it being out of rhythm isn’t hurting my heart. The main thing that can happen when its out of rhythm is because its not pumping the blood correctly through the heart, the tends to pool in the chambers, and the risk of a clot is present. Taking Coumadin helps deal with that. And for years, I took my Coumadin faithly, went for my weekly or monthly Protime checks. But. Somewhere along the line this year … this mental funk I’m in … I stopped taking my Coumadin. I do continue to take the Toprol, because it keeps the heart from racing, and when I don’t take it, it makes things alot worse than they already are.

I received a postcard saying it was time for my yearly check with my cardiologist. Monday, the 17th. So, I’ve been stressing out. Keep the appointment? or cancel? if I keep it, tell him everything is fine … he used to hearing my heart out of rhythm, and he has “dealt” with me before, so, pretty basically, he tells me what he would like to do, but the choice is mine to do or not do. And so far, I have always chosen “not to do”.

One of the things he wants to do is doing a nuclear stress test. I have a real emtional fear of this test. My mom had one, everything showed she was fine … and two weeks later, she had a heart attack. A couple years later, she went in the hospital for some tests, again, she had a nuclear stress test, and she died the next day. 3 week later, my Atrial Fib was discovered, and I was rushed to the hospital, and spent 6 days in the hospital , with them trying to get it back into rhythm. A very emotional time for me. Same hospital, same doctors, same tests …. at one point they had to move patients around, and they moved me into the room my mom had died it. I lost it. So, when he wanted to do a nuclear stress test on me, I just. could. not. do it.

Fast forward a couple years. He still wants to do the test, I still don’t want to do it. At the last appointment, he wanted to put me in the hospital and give me some special medicine that could possibly make the heart go back in rhythm. He also would like to try shocking it. Here’s the kicker though. Both of these things …. if the odds were good that these things would work, I would probably do them. But. There is a chance either way, they won’t work. Or, they could work, and 2 days later, my heart could go back out of rhythm. With no insurance, I have a real hard time incurring thousands of dollars for something that may not work or if it did work, could quit working within a couple of days. No one knows. So, I made the choice not to have them done.

Once again, I’m face with these same choices, these same decisions. With the death of Ethan’s friend this week, he is emotionally raw, and it has made me realize that maybe I need to step back up to the plate and do some things to improve the quality of my life, not to mention doing things that I know need to be done, with this condition. Like, take my presciptions like I’m supposed to. Go take those blood tests.

Ethan’s reaction, when he learned of the death of his friend was “I have to go call my mom”. He need me. He needed the comfort of my voice. Of my words. He. Needed. His. Mom. That was kinda a wake up call for me. I have sunk low enough in this funk that, even though I’m not contimplating suicide or anything like that, I often think that things would be better if I wasn’t here. Yes, even to my husband and child. I don’t cook very often anymore. The house is a mess. I feel like a failure as a wife and a mom. And yet … when his REACTION was - that he needed me…he didn’t think about it, he just instinctively reached for me, I realized, that maybe, just maybe I am doing something right. And in conversations since then, he has expressed very emotionally, that I need to do whatever it takes to insure the length of my life, because if I die right now, he will not be able to handle it. Well — yes, he would deal with it, and life would go on. But, if I love him, and his dad, then I owe it to them to make some changes here, and make some hard decisions. And, even selfishly, I need to do it for me. I feel like cruddy all the time now. And I’m sure the heart is playing a large part of that.

At the very least, I need to get back on the Coumadin regiment. Financially, that is manageable. The presription itself is around $70 a month. And the blood tests are $40 each. Since I haven’t taken it for awhile now, if it goes like it has in the past, I will have to go for blood tests every few days the first few weeks;and then eventually, it will go to once a week, and once they get the level of Coumadine where it needs to be, then we can level off to once a month.

To me, there have been lots of “God-Whispers” lately that this is the right thing to do. Heart articles that keep popping up. Cheney going into the hospital for his Atrial Fib. Coming across blogs that has a family member that has Atrial Fib. All reminders of how serious this condition really is, and I really need to deal with it better. Ethan needing me, I need to deal with it better. I think I finally get it.

The reprieve? I’ve been thinking, reflection, stressing all week, and now all weekend about just how I wanted my cardiologist appointment to go this Monday ….. and I was putting Ethan’s work schedule in day planner, and I realized, I’m a week off. My apointment is the 17th. Which is next Monday, not this Monday. So, I have another week to figure out just exactly what I’m going to do.