Update on Ali, my daughter (page 3)

Ding

Coffee,

There's nothing wrong with crying.

Get it out.

jgnat

So happy to hear that your daughter is recovering. So glad to hear that family and neighbours are coming to their senses and being kind, helpful.

The virus connection reminded me of a flu I caught ten years ago that destroyed a muscle in my shoulder. I could not raise my arm over my head for months. My sister, a family physician, casually mentioned that the flu virus can do that sometimes. Be grateful it did not attack my heart muscle. I blanched, and have taken the flu shot every year ever since.

I hate the flu. I hate flu and cancer.

coffee_black

Ding... I know... I just have a hard time getting it out. I'm usually really good in a crisis...but fall apart when its over. This isn't over...and won't be for a while to come....

Coffee

jamiebowers

I've been holding it together...fairly well... until my oldest cousin's husband died last Friday, and I went to the funeral on Wed. It somehow made it real...how close Ali had come...and how serious all of this is...and the flood gates opened... I guess that's a good thing... cleansing in a way.

According to my sister in law who is a head nurse of an ICU, this is normal. After I found my husband unresponsive on the bathroom floor, (per his pacemaker readings he was dead for five minutes), I was a real trooper for the three days it took to get him off of the ventilator. After that I started bursting into tears at the smallest things. A month later I'm still doing it every once in a while. I guess it has to do with the drop of adrenaline after the initial crisis.

Please also be aware that cardiac arrest patients tend to go through depression that causes severe fatigue. My husband spent his first few weeks of recuperation worried that he wouldn't be able to return to work. Once he learned that it was depression, he stopped worrying and started focusing on becoming active. The doctors say that he will eventually be better than what he was from a few years before the cardiac arrest I hope the medication and device will do the same for your daughter.

coffee_black

(((((((((((((jamiebowers))))))))))))))) I hope your husband recovers quickly! Ali has had some depression through this... the dr told her to expect it. She is normally very active, so having to slow down is very disturbing to her. The dr told her that she qualifies for permanent disability....that's not easy for her to swallow.

She had a nice Christmas yesterday...but overdid it a little. She had friends over.. today she is resting....

Coffee

life is to short

Jamie and coffee black

I am so sorry for what you are going through, I know when my husband had his heart attack at the KH I went into total shock. I did not have a clue he was having chest pains for a week, I knew he was not feeling well but we had both had really bad colds just before this and he told me it was the cold in his chest still bothering him, I believed him as I had no reason not too.

I will never forget standing in the KH parking lot and coming out to hear my husband telling another elder he was having a major heart attack, that he had been to the doctor the day before which I did not know and that he had also planed to have a test at the hospital the next day to check his heart all of which he never told me about.

I just went into total shock. The elder was just standing there not doing a dam thing. I was like WE HAVE GOT TO GET YOU TO THE HOSPITAL NOW. The elder my husband was talking to said or did nothing. I run in grabbed my purse and we took off as I was leaving the elder did say are you in any shape to drive. He never once offered to drive me.

I held it together the whole time, and then the second time also when he had his second heart attack when no one from the hall really gave a dam. All the other elders cared about was would he still be able to conduct the stupid school as none of them wanted the job. It seems now that I am falling apart, realizing what could have happened and what could still happen. The Chaplin at the hospital was so great I will never forget her kindness well more kind than any of the JW's.

It has been three years and still the memorys of that time can come up and overwhelm me.

I am again so sorry for what the both of you are going through there are no real words to say but that I am sorry for your pain.

LITS