{ 2007 02 16 }

Epiphany in the E.R.

I spent last Monday night (2/5) in the emergency room. I was getting ready for Tae Kwon Do just before 5pm when I felt my heart do some weird bumpity-bump for about 10 seconds. It was scary. You should never feel your heart. I had had one or two skipped beats here or there over the years and have even seen the doc about it, but it never went on for 10 seconds. That feels like an eternity when you’re wondering if your heart has started to check out. I was fine afterwards with just the slightest of chest pains (1 or 2 on a scale of 1 to 10). And they were very localized. I was in a hurry to get to TKD, so I put the fear in my pocket for 15 minutes. It crept out when I gave Alyssa a lesson in the car about what to do if I were to become unconscious while driving.

When we got to TKD, I was upstairs in the changing room and the fear jumped out like a rabid dog and demanded my attention. I decided it would be foolish to ignore something about my heart, especially being my kids’ only living parent. I called the babysitter and arranged to have her pick Alyssa up after TKD and headed to the E.R.

When Anna first got her cancer diagnosis, I had a panic attack the weekend after and thought it was a heart attack. It wasn’t, thankfully. The nice thing about heart problems and the E.R. is that you get a golden ticket right in the door. Having spent 17 months in hospitals and doctor’s offices with Anna, I was depressed and scared to be back in one. You get kinda used to it at the time, but having been away from the medical establishment, more or less, for 6 months, I hadn’t missed it a bit.

There I sat on a gurney in the E.R. They hooked me up to an EKG and took an X-Ray and took blood and I just sat. And sat and sat. My blood pressure when I came in was high - 170 over 120. So I watched the machine, glad to see it dropping as I sat and waited. Just sitting there with my thoughts for 3 hours, I had a bit of an epiphany.

I had gotten myself into a pattern of staying up late goofing off. I loves me my alone time. Playing guitar, reading, watching TV, reading blogs, writing in my blog, whatever shiney thing crosses my path. So I was getting to bed at 1am the previous 10 days or so. And since I have to be up no later than 7:30 to get the kids to school and daycare on time, I was really building up a sleep deficit. On top of that, with Anna’s birthday and 6 month anniversary the week before, I wasn’t sleeping too well when I was actually down for the night.

About those shiney things. Following the next shiny thing that crosses my path is the story of my life. I have ADHD. It can be a blessing at times (like when I write software), but mostly, it’s a curse. Especially now, trying to raise kids on my own. Anna helped me re-remember that I have it. I got an official diagnosis a few years ago. So I sat there with my thoughts and realized that my ADHD was going to kill me via a heart attack via sleep deprivation if I didn’t do something about it. My therapist, Cricket, told me years ago that being a morning person or a night person is just part of your nature and is very difficult to change. Interestingly, I had had coffee with my friend Alan that morning (a friend of Cricket’s, actually), and he suggested that it’s much more malleable than that. I decided, sitting there on the gurney, that I would become a morning person. That I would start living like my dad, with order and discipline. That I would, at 37 years old, finally become a grownup.

Now, the mind of someone with ADHD is full of grandiose plans. The irony was that this was just another grand plan. (plus a bargain with myself in order to stay alive until Emma turns 18). Luckily, I still had several hours of wait ahead of me, so I figured out a way to actually turn my plan into concrete reality. It was time to make some real changes in my schedule and in my mind:

  • Go to bed when the kids go to bed. Shower after Alyssa is down at 9pm and be in bed by 9:30, reading until 9:45.
  • No laptop at night. Looking into a bright light right before sleep is dumb.
  • Step #3: Stop focusing on stupid shit like learning how to weld and build crazy bicycles. Occupy my mind with more important shit like when Alyssa’s Girl Scout sleepover is and where I can get a decent Batman costume for Ian for the stars he’s earned.
  • No more coffee. Decaf or tea in moderation.
  • Wake up at 6am or so and Get Things Done.
  • Let go of the idea that I’m going to be the next Martin Sexton or Iron Chef. I suppose this is obvious, but some little part of my brain hadn’t done this yet. I have dozens of songs I want to record with my new Christmas present. It’ll all have to wait.
  • Sadly, dear readers, give up the idea that I’m able to blog and read blogs as much as I might like. I don’t really put blogging or reading my friend’s blogs in the shiney things category (in other words, I really do see staying in touch with people this way as worthwhile), but it can be time consuming.

The doc came in and told me my heart is totally fine. That I need to keep losing weight (I’ve actually lost about 8 pounds since MLK day, thanks in part to SparkPeople - Thanks again for the tip, Kat). That what I had was probably PVCs and there’s no link to fatality with those whatsoever. That if I had something more serious, there would be signs. The PVCs are often linked to too much caffeine and too much stress (and, I surmised, too little sleep).

So I’m doing all those things above. I’ve been early to bed and early to rise nearly every day since that night. It’s glorious to be mostly caught up on sleep again. It’s quite nice to be up early and see the sun rise. I’ve always liked this, actually. Now, it’s a regular occurrence. No, I haven’t picked up my guitar for more than 5 minutes in the last week and a half. No, I’m not blogging as much as I’d like. No, I haven’t watched Iron Chef or Good Eats in that week and a half. But I do have my next actions list current and I do feel good and I’m much less tempted to overeat now that I’m not sleep deprived. I’m much more focused on parenting being my shiney thing for the next, oh, 20 years. 3 hours alone with my thoughts in a hospital gown and no computer or anything to be shiney was an unexpected gift.

Having more sleep helps keep my ADHD in check to a decent extent. But it’s still there. And I do still get tired of so much soup and garbage can. I made a deal with myself there in the E.R. that if I don’t get my shit together by March 1, I’m going to treat my ADHD. My shit is now much more together and hopefully keeping it together isn’t just another shiney thing itself and it will stick. If not, I may consider ritalin or strattera. I’m considering it anyway. In a classic ADHD move, I ordered the book “Scattered,” only to find I’ve read it already (and can’t find my copy). But it’s a worthy re-read.

People have told me I’m doing such a great job raising my kids by myself. I’ve always appreciated the compliment. And, in a lot of objective ways, I am doing pretty well. Before the holidays, I was managing our family better. But I never felt like I really was doing the right thing in my heart. I’m getting there now. Sometime in the future, I may take the compliment and even believe it in my heart of hearts.

Posted by jase on Friday, February 16th, 2007, at 12:39 pm, and filed under Anna, Anna Cancer, Music, Parenting, Personal.

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