Worry - Zero to Sixty

Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) changes everything.  Even how we worry.  Like they measure acceleration in cars, we SCA survivors can go from zero anxiety to catastrophe in seconds flat.  Sometimes, I think I have forgotten how to worry "in between", in moderation.  It is worry-free or it is the Apocalypse.  Or the SCA version of Apocalypse - hearts stopping without warning or implanted defibrillators (ICD's) shocking the crap out of us, also without warning.

I remind myself almost daily of Mark Twain's admonition that 90% of what he worried about most in his life never actually happened; I try to use his insight and wit to moderate the fear that accompanies post- SCA worry, but I fail more often than I like to admit.

Worrying in the post-SCA life is like the anxiety one feels in the first ragged months after death of a loved one.  Particularly in our youth, before we become skilled at grief.   (never mastery, of course, but there are some skills to be had there).  You know, when you get a late night phone call before the loved one's death, you may have a moment's disorientation, a spot of worry, more spots of annoyance at the interruption, the thought "this better be good".  Then, in the aftermath of the loved one's death, we are so acutely aware that it's possible that someone we love will die; that our people can actually die.  We hear the late night call, and the first thought is someone's death.   In my experience, happily, that level of worry dissipates as the months and then years pass after the loved one's death.

But now I think I may have to accept that the post-SCA zero-to-catastrophe worry is here to stay.  It's been a couple years, and it has not changed.  When I have a sensation in my chest (or really, almost anywhere), my first thought - icy, icy thought - is that it's the ICD and it's going to fire.  Or if the sensation is more of a sensitivity, my first thought - more iciness, is that something is wrong, either with my ICD or with the heart. (there are stories published seemingly constantly about quality issues with ICD's.  I skip most of them).

I have a "blog friend" in the Netherlands; I love hers - "Thoughts of Wonder".  (her link: www.motherofwonder.blogspot.com).  She is younger than I am, is raising young children, and has no business having to deal with this SCA nonsense.  Not that any of us should, but certainly not a young mom in her early 30's.  It is even more wrong.

So my friend, Marije, put up a new post "Not So Lovely Days".   A normal person, a pre-SCA me, would have thought she simply had a bad day.  But no, this is post-SCA and it's zero to sixty.  Me and Skippy the defibrillator immediately thought she had arrested again.  Or had a defibrillator shock.  Or something else horrible.  Just from reading those four words "Not So Lovely Days".  My worry is misplaced, in keeping with Mark Twain's 90% maxim -  I'm happy to say Marije was merely dealing with a household of people large and small who are suffering through colds or flu.  It only takes a minute; the anxiety disappears.  But I know it'll be back on another day; I know it's become a fixture.

So there it is again. Our hearts don't work like normal people hearts; something has gone off the rails there, whether we want to admit it or not.  And we no longer worry like normal people.   Zero to 60 in nothing flat.  I need a slower car.  I'm gonna get me a slower car.

(the photo above is my first car.  How it got to the front lawn of the apartment building and why I left it there - well, that is a long, old story for another day).