How Can a Blackout be a Gift?
Instead of inspiration hitting me so I could write about the frazzled last year and inspire us for the New Year, a blackout hit me atop Saddle Rock. My blackout is a gift because I missed warning signs and made mistakes, and writing with smiles may make it easier to succeed in 2012.
Karen, family and I hiked up Saddle Rock after Christmas. Hiking was a triumph after a year dedicated to halting the decline of my heart failure and beginning healing with medications, supplements, a sleep apnea machine and mostly tennis. Saddle Rock was a deserving landmark since its dedication last year as a public treasure was one of the community’s best accomplishments.
However my blackout was a setback, and my mistakes remind me to be more tolerant of mistakes like default on Event Center debt. I like to make light of my blackout by claiming the giddy success of standing on Saddle Rock made me lightheaded, but that’s inaccurate. I felt dizzy almost immediately. I reached out to Karen, too late. My eyes rolled back and I tipped backward onto the ground. Karen unsuccessfully reached for me while incorrectly assuming I was dying. It’s comforting to know she was reaching. But she’s getting used to it like most Americans our age who feel we’re unsuccessfully reaching for the slowly vanishing security in Social Security, Medicare, and retirement plans.
My blackout converted to confusion amid sounds of sirens as our daughter told 911 my pulse was forty. We met Don, my age or older, impressively still on his feet and offering a prayer. We joined hands while the EMT vehicle clawed to the top. I felt a new stillness in my heart as Don prayed, although my pulse may have been picking up speed.
Stillness inside helped me through short-lived chaos outside. In the oncoming drizzle our emergency vehicle slipped down the slope like values in my 401(K). The slippage unleashed Karen’s acrophobia in her front-seat view and elevated her to the driver’s primary concern. In ER I recovered with a saline-water IV and egg salad sandwich insisting I could go home. The ER physician insisted I stay because of my heart conditions. This time Karen successfully grabbed my cheeks, placed her nose on my nose and confided, “I don’t want you at home.” She should grab the cheeks of political leaders to say, “I don’t want you home until you finish your work.”
Doctors and nurses hospitalized me for two days. A heart monitor and test results focused on the probable cause: medications, dehydration, over-exertion and standing too quickly interacted with the body’s normal response to slow down the heart after exercise, called a vasovagal response. Blood temporarily drained from my brain. Doctors changed my medications and prescribed a heart monitor for three weeks.
The experience unnerved me, but family reminded me it was a gift. They’re right. One night the hospital’s monitor recorded my pulse at 160 just after I wheeled my saline-water IV stand into the bathroom just in time. I thought the shortness of breath was from holding my breath to squeeze my bladder as I often do. It’s difficult to admit I missed those warnings. Federal leaders and investors may feel just as chagrined years from now about ignoring the Standard and Poors downgrade of the US debt.
I made other mistakes. I didn’t drink enough water on the way up because my water bottle was buried in the bottom of my backpack and Karen was gaining ground on me. Besides the top was always getting closer. I’m more forgiving of Congress regularly thinking it can muddle along as each election gets closer.
My blackout gave me better prescriptions and deeper experiences to rein in my enthusiasm. Join me to treat 2011 as a blackout and recommit to the better prescriptions we need to make a more successful 2012.
Posted by JSR at 1/9/2012 3:30 PM 
Categories: Adventures in Retirement:Health for thriving
Tags: Blackout vasovagal heart failure cardiomyopathy AFib heart monitor Saddle Rock dehydration hypotension
Categories: Adventures in Retirement:Health for thriving
Tags: Blackout vasovagal heart failure cardiomyopathy AFib heart monitor Saddle Rock dehydration hypotension
So glad you're still with us Jim! Love your inspirational writing.
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If only we could take congress to the ER and have them come out so much clearer in their thinking. Perhaps we should call our Representatives, take their face in our hands, hold our nose to theirs and tell them, "I don't want you home until we are out of debt, creating jobs, and funding our schools!"
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