MUMS The Word!!

The mums have arrived at Kroger's and that is one of the first signs that fall is just around the corner!

I am totally thrilled!

I worked in my garden (containers) all afternoon and everyone looks like a boy who has been to the barber and got a severe haircut! LOL  I completely tossed a few but most of them needed some tender loving care and serious watering and fertilizing.  We will see how they do but I hope some of them will give a last blast of beauty before fall settles in with us. 

My babies are looking shorn but soooo much better than they did!!  Won't be long til some mums are out on the porch and I can't wait!

We cooked a lot today and had some wonderful food:

Tracy baked two loaves of rye bread and it is just delicious!

The dough for Carrot/Walnut bread is rising now and it smells so good! 

I AM a pizza freak and Tracy feeds me well!

We bought these green beans last weekend at the Nashville Farmer's Market and I steamed them tonight and seriously they are the best green beans I have ever eaten!  They had no additives, no sugar, no salt, no bacon grease, nothing but green beans steamed in water and they are so delicious I may eat them all tonight!  

All is well at the Trogdon's homestead and we wish all of you would come visit us soon!!

LOVE!

The Never Ending End of Summer

Our plants really took a heat hit while we were away in sunny Illinois getting some R&R!  And they have never really recovered plus the heat and humidity continue to hang in there, as they always do in August so everything outside is looking pretty pitiful.  Here is one small flower blooming among the brown branches of a plant that was so lovely not so long ago.  The end of summer is not fun and lingers on and I am ready for some fall...gold and orange and red!!  The oppressive greens (and browns) are getting me down!

So we have been walking every day and here is a pic of today's end of the trail sky.  Again it is still very warm and even though we waited until nearly 8PM to walk today, it was still 89 degrees outside.  I know the Greenway is going to be beautiful when fall arrives and I JUST CAN'T WAIT!  Common theme, huh?

I haven't had a cigarette in 21 days...three weeks...and I could pick up a pack and smoke them all LOL but I won't, I don't think I will right this second!!  I have lost all physical cravings for smokes but still have the emotional triggers quite frequently.  I crave one after I eat a very big meal, I crave one after I have been confined and unable to smoke, like in Walmart or at church, once I come outside I want to smoke and I crave a smoke whenever I first get in the truck to go somewhere.  But I have noticed I do not think of smoking at all when I first wake up and I do not crave them when I lay out in the sun, which used to be a prime smoking time.  So in many ways it is getting better and I know it will get better and better over time.  I won't start smoking again because I fear the terrible pain I experienced would return and I might never be able to quit again.  

We had a wonderful night out at The Nashville Farmer's Market last weekend!

It is just so beautiful there and God is so good to give us so many delicious and nutritious choices!

And look at those colors!

 

Been doing some crafty things like clipping stuff out of magazines and decopaguing them on to painted canvasses...these are two I put in the bathroom but you could clip any type of pics out and make a cool collage:

FUN!!!

So as of this Sunday, my days at The Medical Center will be completed and I start my new job next Wednesday.  I am very excited and look forward to learning a new type of nursing.  Tracy is back at school and should hear about nursing school acceptance in the next few months.  We went to Nashville today and had a blast!  Well, I had a blast and he hung around with me :)  

First we did a test run to the new place I will be working because my anxiety about driving in Nashville is in the upper limits.  But after today's drive I feel some better.  It will take some getting used to but hopefully with time and lots of prayer I will not have any full blown anxiety attacks or have to pull to the side of the interstate and cry...Remember Houston, Miranda?? I was sure we were going to die!!  Then we went to the mall and got some much needed hair care products at Sephora and the cutest box set of philosophy lip gloss:

Inside are Rice Krispie Treats and Caramel Apple flavored lip gloss!!  Thank you, baby!  I tried not to go wild in there!  I don't know what comes over me in Sephora but it must be some kind of mind control!!!

 

Then we went to Sweet CeCe's for yogurt and yummy toppings:

We had low fat yogurt and portion control although it was NOT easy!!

Tonight we tried grilling salmon for the first time and it was superb!  I was in such a hurry to try it I didn't even take a picture and the presentation was awesome!!   Salmon pieces with grilled onions and green peppers along with Portabello mushrooms!  Sooooo tasty and next time maybe I can control myself long enough to take some pictures to show you :)  We are doing really good with our dietary changes because you can prepare such wonderful foods and still eat healthy. I kinda dread this winter though because no fresh foods for awhile but that makes me more determined to have a big garden next year and I need to start planning that soon!

Last but not least I can attribute my latest jag to my wonderful Mom who sent me a package because she was thinking of me and guess what was inside!  A paper blog is how I describe it!!  Just as this is my web-based virtual blog this is a journal called "Smash" and you fill it with anything your little heart desires and I have been stuffing things in it daily!  Here is today's page which contains the "hard copy" of my day:

Sorry it is sideways but you get the picture and thanks Mom!! 

A new box of crayons!!!

So I am off to take a shower and then to bed.  Going to bed earlier these days because I am not a night shift person any more!  I am thrilled!  And for in the morning...

Panera bagels!  Yummy!

PS...I have so much to be thankful for and I AM!!  God is so good to me in so many ways and I could never express to Him or you how grateful I am for His blessings and love.  Thank You for all the answered prayers of late and help me to love You with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength which is the first and great commandment!

A Knapsack of Thoughts Fill My Head

So I haven't posted in awhile but guess that is okay.  I read a blog on blog pointers (how to make your blog better in 12 easy steps) today and it said not to mention that you haven't posted in awhile and also to post everyday!  It said mentioning the obvious makes you look silly and besides if you don't bring it up, maybe no one will notice.  LOL  I think it will be okay and some people take blogging way too serious.  They must be making money off of it, huh?  I am just doing it for fun!

Here is a pictorial update of what has been going on during my posting hiatus:

GOOD FOOD

Grilled chicken sandwiches and grilled fresh corn and fresh green beans with

 grilled pineapple (OK that is too many grilled and freshes but they were!)

Homemade pizza and salad

Omelet with mozzarella cheese and leeks with oat-date bread (yes, homemade!)

TRACY'S BARBER SHOP

I love this place!

So, yes, Tracy got a haircut :)

 INGREDIENTS FOR LATEST PINTEREST PROJECT

Grapefruits and coarse salt to clean the bathtub and shower!

Promises clean and no fumes!!

So here is my "scrub brush"

So I scrubbed (yes, I had to scrub but I have no problem with scrubbing as long as I don't need an iron lung when I get through scrubbing and this left pretty grapefruit smell!)  I added more salt when my scrubbing power wore off.  In all fairness my right wrist is still very painful and my grip is diminished since the infamous wrist cath so it might have gone much better if I had tried this another time but the shower needed it!!

The finished product...pic is dark but the concoction washed away with ease and left the shower shiny and clean.  I honestly did not take a "before" pic but would say it was medium filthy and in need of cleaning about two weeks ago! Soooo tah-dah--I am thrilled!  Clean shower and I can breathe afterwards!

Win-win and thanks pinterest!

LATE NIGHT REWARD FOR HARD WORK IN SHOWER AREA (kinda)

 My newest jag: Coconut Almond Chocolate Light Ice Cream

Believe me I take what happened very seriously and would never cheat unless the food was still pretty healthy and this one is!  Promise!  And it is yummy!

THE BAD OLD MOON

But hey!  I don't have to worry myself with that ole moon, do I!  YAY!

Tracy starts to school tomorrow and will have his last smoke sometime during the day tomorrow.  He had to finish the last carton we bought 11 days ago! Soooo, keep him in your prayers because it is a very difficult task!  Maybe we won't rip each other's heads off  LOL!  Stay tuned and love!  

PS...

I couldn't resist!  Isn't she beautiful!!

Postscript

Things are going well and I feel remarkably good physically but have been sorting through the emotions of it all and here are a few conclusions I've come to :)

From a human standpoint, life is brief and unpredictable. All is well can suddenly become not much is well. Be prepared for either and show the ones you love how much they mean to you! Hug, talk, enjoy!

Be good to yourself. This is not a nagging lecture because I know that won't do. If someone had said to me this time last week, "you better lay those cigarettes down," I would have smiled and continued to smoke, slightly agreeable but lost in my own excuses. Of all the changes I've had to make this week, smoking has been the most difficult. I haven't smoked since 11:30PM, Thursday, August 4, one week ago almost exactly. But I take no pride in that because I know I could pick one up right now and smoke a pack by morning. I just keep remembering that pain (and I have eaten A LOT of carrots! Lol)

The rest has been pretty simple for me because I love to walk, I love trying to cook as healthy as possible, I've set an alarm to remind me to take my blood thinner, and I will have a new job on day shift soon. My blood pressure is way down and I feel good. Occasionally all that happened dawns on me and I get afraid and worry for some fleeting seconds but then I deep breathe because worry is bad and makes me want a smoke lol!

Back to being good to yourself, I'll just say give a try. Make doing what is essential to a healthy life a priority. Lay the cigarettes down, take a walk, move your body, eat what is truly good for you...you deserve the best but you may have a hard time convincing yourself of that if you haven't been good to yourself in a long while. My prayers are for all my family and friends to make good choices but I have a few on top of the list because I know they are not too far from where I was last Friday.

Nurses and doctors, what wonderful professions we have! No, everything we do isn't saving a life but we get to participate in that awesome challenge, often more frequently than we'd like. Several someones saved my life last week and I am so grateful. I'm glad most of them were not burnt out (unimpressed EMS boy may have been and it showed,) the majority of them listened carefully to what I said, and the best ones treated me like I mattered to them as a person.

Thank you, Tracy, Miranda, and Mom and John! You were there for me, you encouraged me, you loved me, and it showed (I know Corey had to stay with the girls). It's so important to show one another our love! You are the best and I love y'all so much!

"Da Pain, Da Pain!"

I am certain that anyone who has talked to me since the heart attack last Friday morning is ready to scream, "OK! OK! You had alot of pain!  Move on to another subject!" But I can't, so since this is where I post my thoughts from Tennessee, this  is where I will dump it all out so it will be here forever and it will make me feel better to get it on paper, or whatever this is! :)

Here are the pics of my heart cath: (yes, I am sounding very senior, aren't I?  Does a heart attack qualify you for a senior discount?  It should...)

 See the space?  There should be no space because those ends are one vessel.  That is the top or proximal portion of the LAD which supplies blood to the left ventricle, which supplies, through its pumping action, oxygenated blood to the body.  

The top arrow is where the blockage was and the arrow to the right of the vessel shows how long that vessel is and how much area of the heart it supplies (approximately 55% of the left ventricle)  Mine was getting very little blood below the blockage.  Ouch!

All of the pics and anatomy to say that is what I attibute my excruciating pain in the hotel bathroom to: lack of oxygen to my left ventricle and the pain was indescribable.   There are several words I would use to describe the character of my pain which would include an electrical or shock-like component, so I wondered in those moments of panic if somehow the vertebra in my mid-back had blown out leaving my spinal cord completely exposed.  There was a slight ripping sensation as well and I had always heard that people with dissecting aneurysms speak of a ripping type pain.  The craziest aspect of the pain I remember was the sensation of laying on broken glass or shards of glass.  I kept trying to move away from the pain, inching my shoulders up and away from the center of my back, as if I could move out of the painful sea I was drowning in.  

The location of my pain was strictly between the lower portion of my shoulder blades and ran through to my mid chest.  My arms were heavy and I was sweaty and nauseous but never got sick.  A few minutes after I got in to the bathroom the sense of impending doom began.  I felt death all around me and I knew I was going to die.  It was like I could feel the life working its way out of my body and leaving it behind.  When I got to Tracy I told him I was dying and told him I loved him because I thought I wouldn't get another chance.  

That is all morose and sad but very important for me to get written down.  So there...maybe now I can quit saying, "The pain, the pain!"  By the way, although we drove home from Urbana on Sunday and had a good night's sleep at home Sunday night, guess who woke up with chest pain yesterday morning?  ME!!  So we drove to Bowling Green to The Medical Center where I had another heart cath.  The stent looked fine and Dr. Chhabra gave me lots of reassurances that I am going to be fine if I make the lifestyle choices that are necessary and believe me I am!  All I have to do is remember that pain!

So today has been our first day and night home since this all started.  We have had a nice, quiet, restful, day.  I have traded cooking for cigarette smoking and it is a nice exchange!  LOL  Tracy made us the most delightful supper:

Very healthy, barely fried rice and...

Baked teriyaki salmon!  Oh my gosh, how yummy!

It is funny, if you read back through my posts, these are changes we had already committed to making...eating healthier, exercise, and we had even discussed how we needed to stop smoking.  My blood pressure was way out of line and I recognized that night shift in the ER was destroying my body and had found another job.  All steps in the right direction and then BAM!  It was like an uber-wake up call!  

I am excited to see how I feel in the weeks and months to come because I have been operating with a very diminished blood supply for who knows how long and I can look back now and see how tired and worn out I had become.  I do remember two specific bouts of chest pain in the last few weeks and one was the last time I walked and told y'all how miserable my walk was! I  attributed the discomfort to the heat and a new exercise I was doing and decided no more walking until this fall. Ask Tracy, deciding not to walk is totally NOT me!  Looking back that was probably good because collapsing somewhere on the White House Greenway would not have been good.  No nitroglycerin there, for sure!   When it was time to leave for work I would beg Tracy to let me stay home because I felt so bad and tired and unable but again I attributed it to burn out and night shift and so on.  So anyway it will be awesome to see if my body can return to some of its previous abilities in a slow, methodical fashion because it has been a LONG time since I felt very good and now I know why :)  By the way, Tracy would always say, "Yes, baby, you can stay home" but that wouldn't pay the bills :)

I told my Mom yesterday that these had been the craziest four days of my life, being in a distant town and having a heart attack and a heart cath and a stent and coming home and back to the hospital and another heart cath...and my near death experience was sobering and humbling.  My husband, my daughter and son in law,  my granddaughters, my mother and stepfather, they are the reason I wanted to continue living and struggled so hard to get help before it was too late.  Thank You, Father, that is really all I can say, and let me live a life that is worthy of You and them.

First The Bad News...

Sunday, August 7, 2011 8:56 PM, CDT

Finally after 4-5 hours the wrist pressure cuff was completely removed and it was so glorious to have it off but my wrist and hand were still swollen and numb.  They were still telling me I was going home tomorrow and so Miranda went on back to Martin and we were so excited about getting to go home the next morning.  It all seemed routine and I marvelled at the fact I could hurt so bad earlier that morning and feel so normal later in the afternoon.  The wonders of medical technology! 

The next morning the nurse practitioner for the cardiology group came in my room and the first words out of her mouth were, "Well you know you had a heart attack yesterday, right?"...Long pause, thoughts spinning, freaking out on the inside, calm on the outside, and saying, "Well, no I didnt" ...Guess what?  I had a heart attack around 4AM on Friday, August 5, 2011 in Champaign, Illinois at a divey hotel in the bathroom, most likely.  HaHa, unimpressed boy from EMS, how about that!? 

Apparently my troponins had continued to rise after the initial reading which is not surprising since it was drawn a mere one hour or so after my pain started.  The cardiologist had been contacted re: the troponin elevation but guess what?  No one told me and Tracy about the change in diagnosis.  Not just ischemia but infarction, tissue death, heart scar, lifelong, forever, these are the words she used to describe what had happened to my myocardium.  My blockage was in the proximal LAD (left anterior descending) coronary artery which means the blockage was high up in the artery and therefore nothing below the blockage received oxygen and that LAD is a long one!  The anterior portion of my left ventricle was pretty much deprived of oxygen during the hotel episode of pain...well see the pictures next...

Little Kentucky ER Nurse We Are Gonna Take Good Care of You!

Sunday, August 7, 2011 8:46 PM, CDT

The ER doctor had explained that they thought I had a blockage in a coronary artery (probably the circumflex) that had a flap that had broken away but not completely and was blocking the artery almost completely.  The NTG I received in the ambulance dilated the arteries enough to provide blood flow again and therefore no pain on arrival to the ER.  But the NTG wore off during the CT and the pain resumed and the blockage was back and so the EKG changes were present.  I am trying to take all this in, in my drugged, freaked out, itching arm state of mind and he keeps saying everything is good, they will balloon the blockage and place a stent and you will be good to go.  Really?  WOW!  That IS awesome!  A cardiologist comes and explains the cath and stent to me and the cath lab staff is ready to whisk me away.  Everyone is excited because I passed the Allen's test and can have my cath in my wrist.  I am excited too because that means no bedrest postcath, unlike my cath in 2006 (which was negative by the way) and which was in the groin.  Off we go to the cath lab and Tracy has to leave me at the doors to wait in the waiting room and my head is spinning and this is surreal and can this be happening? And remember that pain, that pain, the most awful pain ever...please do anything to make it never come back again. 

The cath lab staff was super nice and everyone kept telling me everything was good and no problem and we will take care of this little Kentucky ER nurse and here comes the Versed and Fentanyl, night, night...Next thing I know I am looking at the cardiologist who says you had a 95% blockage of your LAD and we put a stent in your artery and most people who have this type of blockage arent doing as well as you are. They call them the widowmaker, you are very lucky... Well, that sounds good, I am doing good.  But oh man my right wrist is killing me.  I look at it and see a clear plastic velcro band is around the wrist and man, is it digging into the skin.  It has been blown up with air to provide pressure to the radial artery and after two hours the air can be released 1 mL at a time.  Misery!   My hand was twice its normal size and my thumb and wrist were numb.  I will never have a wrist cath again!  Give me bedrest and no pain any day!  Later I found out that they had trouble getting the correct angle at the heart when doing the cath and had to move the catheter back and forth several times and this was given as the reason for the excessive swelling and pain.  Whatever, it sucked!

They take me to my new room on the telemetry floor and tell me I am as good as new and will go home in the morning and...I don't know, they must have told me a million things but I was worn out.  Someone came and did a bedside 2D echocardiogram and I don't even remember having it done.  Miranda arrived shortly after this and then a new patient arrived in the bed next to me (the room was semi-private and that was not good!)  Can I just rest now?  Did any of this happen?  Sleepy, I am very sleepy...

My Story Compels Him...

Sunday, August 7, 2011 7:45 PM, CDT

So after asking me several times which hospital I wanted to go to and me telling them I was not from there and had no idea what hospital to go to, Tracy asked which one was closer and they said, "Carl" and Tracy says, "how about we go there?"  Relief, decision made and I am on the stretcher and being wheeled to the ambulance.  I guess there were two ambulance services on the scene and unimpressed boy was not with "Carl" so he disappeared but I could not swear to that because I had no idea what was going on.  All I noticed was those licks of NTG were decreasing my pain and just as I thought that to myself, the older paramedic, who was now my primary caregiver in the ambulance said it was time for some more.  Yes!  He actually sprayed it under my tongue and I felt the burn and was so excited that my pain was decreasing.  Tracy followed behind us and we drove on to "Carl" which turned out to be Carle Foundation Hospital.  The paramedic gave report to the ER on me and seemed to be concerned but also mentioned no EKG changes and normal V/S.  I received another spray of NTG before we pulled in and by the time I was being pulled out of the ambulance my pain was about a "3"  Hmmmm....by now I was starting to feel pretty stupid.  For some reason it never occurred to me that the NTG STOPPED my pain and though pain gone is good, it was obviously cardiac pain but my EKG was normal so I am thinking esophageal spasms maybe, I dont know and then I am in the ER at Carle. 

A nurse and a tech come right in with me and tell me they are going to be doing lots of things fast and following their chest pain protocols.  I am thinking, Yep, I know all about that.  When she questions me about my pain I tell her it is now around "2" and again I am feeling really dumb.  They do a 12-lead and it looks perfect.  WOW!  I am looking at Tracy and starting to apologize for having him call an ambulance and being so overdramatic but I just couldn't forget that pain.  It was the most excruciating, terrifying, debilitating thing I had ever felt.  Nevertheless it was completely gone by now and I am thinking maybe they can just discharge me now.

The ER doctor comes in almost immediately and by now I confess I am an ER nurse and I am feeling really dumb and probably shouldn't have come and certainly not by EMS.  He asks me about my pain and I suppose what I said really compelled him because I kept telling him it hurt beyond anything I could imagine and that I thought I was going to die.  We discussed some of the things I had already considered and he was concerned about the possibility of a dissecting aorta in my chest although it seemed nearly impossible that the pain would be so intense and stop.  Still he took me very seriously and explained to me that we would determine what caused my pain or give up when we ruled everything else out.  He was super nice and never once seemed to question me or act as if I was overdramatic.  I felt like I was in good hands and Tracy and I chatted while we waited for me to go for a CT of my chest.  My troponin results were 0.02 and my CXR looked good.

Next they took me to CT and I still was experiencing no pain.  I "hopped" from the ER stretcher to the CT table with no difficulty and laid there waiting for the CT to begin.  A few minutes into the CT that pain in my mid back returned full force.  I could barely lay there and the tech kept encouraging me and saying just a few more seconds but I was about to come off the table.  She quickly finished and wheeled me back to ER calling out for help as she moved me into the room.  The ER nurse was right there at my side and attaching me to the EKG machine and giving me a NTG and calling for the doctor.  He looked at my EKG and there it was...ischemia in the anterior leads. 

By this time my pain is way up there, nearly as severe as it was at the motel.  The doctor is trying to explain what he thinks is going on and drawing some pictures and they are hanging a NTG gtt and giving me Morphine and it is just as crazy now as it was calm earlier.  They are calling a cardiologist and if the NTG gtt doesn't help in 10 minutes they will cath me emergently and if it does stop my pain they will cath me in an hour...oh my gosh!!!  I am overhwhelmed!  But then the NTG starts to help and my pain is decreasing but I have huge hives and redness up my right arm and it is itching wildly!  News to me: I am allergic to Morphine, then comes the Benadryl IV and by now I am calming down and feeling really sleepy and waiting for the cath lab staff to come get me. 

Stay tuned...

EMS: the good, the bad, the unimpressed?

Sunday, August 7, 2011 8:26 AM, CDT

Hearing that the ambulance had arrived was the best news I'd ever heard. My pain was still outrageous but now I was able to lie down onto my back rather than thrash about trying to move away from the pain. The first EMS guy to arrive in the room was not impressed. Then it dawned on me...we are here at the Crack Pipe Hotel and there's no telling what he's seen here. Do I tell him I'm a nurse and not a hooker? He's taking his sweet time, asks a few questions and really does NOTHING at all. Then an older guy comes to my side and puts some O2 on me! Thank you! Unimpressed boy is still asking questions and yes, I saw him roll his eyes when I rated my pain a "10." But it was a "10" I promise.

Finally I say I'm a nurse, please, put me on the monitor, so I can see my rhythm. Still not impressed boy starts an IV and tells me everything is OK. How does he know? Please put me on the monitor! Finally the older guy starts attaching the leads and then I see unimpressed boy moving his hand toward my face, oh wow, he has nitro spray but he doesn't say open your mouth or raise your tongue, he just suddenly sprays and it's on my teeth and lips and some on my face but I quickly licked it off like it was cotton candy, I wanted every drop of it! By now I was on the monitor and everyone concurred it was a perfectly normal rhythm. "Nothing wrong there" unimpressed boy said and told me to hop over on to their stretcher. Hop? Oh my gosh, I am going to die. But somehow I got over there and I did not see his smirky face again. Please someone get me to a hospital!

How It All Began

Saturday, August 6, 2011 11:56 PM, CDT

We arrived in Mahomet, IL around 11:30PM Thursday night and checked into our hotel room. We had come there for Tracy's friend, Andy, whose niece was getting married on Saturday. I had worked nights on Wednesday and stayed up all day to switch back to day shift for my next four days off. I was extremely tired and kinda nauseous on the trip to Mahomet. The wedding was in nearby Champaign/Urbana but I would end up in Urbana for a totally different reason.

We visited in the hotel room with Andy for a short time and then started getting ready for bed. The hotel was quite the little dive but it was late and I doubted there was much else available. Besides I was sooooo tired! We laid down and I fell right to sleep probably around midnight or a little after. I remember waking up once and I was hurting in my chest. But I repositioned myself in the bed and fell back asleep. The next time I woke up it was almost 4am. Man, my chest was killing me but as I rolled around I realized the pain was originating in my back, between my shoulder blades and then through toward the front in my chest.

I got out of bed and headed to the bathroom. As I walked the few steps to the bathroom door the pain became excruciating. I have had kidney stones, two babies, dental abscesses, gallbladder pain and all that added up together didn't touch this pain. At first I literally thought I was going to die from the pain itself. My mind is racing thinking what is going on? I'm thinking big stuff like a dissecting thoracic aneurysm, a blown out disc in my back, and then I broke out in a complete sweat, just sweat pouring off of me and the nausea hit me. Was this the virus going around Bowling Green I'd seen over and over the last two nights I worked? But what about this pain in my back and through to my chest?

I'm not sure how long I was in the bathroom, probably a few minutes, when the deepest sense of impending doom hit me. "I am going to die right here in this awful hotel bathroom, how sad!" I could barely stand, I didn't want to lay in the floor, I was confused and collapsing and somehow stumbled back to the bed calling for Tracy. By this time I am in full blown panic, more pain than I ever imagined possible combined with this sense that death was very near was spinning my head around but all I could do was struggle around to the bed trying to escape that pain.

Tracy wake up, something is bad wrong. I wondered if I conveyed how dire my situation was to him. He woke right up and jumped out of bed trying to assess what was going on. I think I told him I was dying. I remember being unable to find a place of comfort and constantly moving on the bed to try and get away from the pain but nothing helped. It occurred to me if Tracy drove me to a hospital I would probably die in the car and I told him then to call 911. He did and it seemed like they asked 10,000 questions before telling him help was on the way. We waited forever for EMS to arrive and I told Tracy how much I loved him. I nearly lost consciousness around that time but when I heard the ambulance I felt a ray of hope...to be continued

Day Two (the first day I posted about this craziness)

Saturday, August 6, 2011 8:31 PM, CDT

This is day two of Tracy and Lisa's "not quite what we planned wedding adventure."  Only we missed the wedding because I had a heart attack. I am laying in bed on a telemetry unit, sorting through all this craziness. It's been a surreal 36 hours and I'm gonna write it all down because that makes me feel better. Right now I want to feel better because I'm pretty blue and far from home. So stay tuned...

The BIG One

Well, I guess my posts are going from "how-to's" and cheery updates to dead serious today. I see my last post was July 26th and ironically it was about clean eating and our new commitment to eat foods that were fresh, whole, and mostly five ingredients or less. After that I didn't write again. Looking back, it's kinda strange that I didn't write for days but I worked a lot and was really tired and didn't feel so great and on and on...

Yesterday, August 5th, around 4am, I had a heart attack. I know, it's surreal, isn't it? It still hasn't sunk in for me. We are in Champaign, IL, for a wedding we never made it to. Today, August 6th, I'm sitting in a hospital room, trying to let it all sink in without allowing these events make me crazy. I think Tracy's in shock, too, and we are up here alone and confused. Maybe I'll write more later or maybe I won't write another word about it. Who can say? Life is strange and it's hard to post from my iPad (plus no pictures). So after another tasteless hospital supper I think I will stare out the window some more and think about the girl I used to be.