My Relationship with Cats
By H.A. Parsons
Pain attacks me in my deepest sleep. I feel the incredible choking pressure on my chest. Breathing is a labour. Oh. My. Goodness, I am having a heart attack.
The reason I know without a doubt that I am having a heart attack isn’t because I am some type of medical expert. No, the reason I am keenly aware of the symptoms of a heart attack is because my husband, Jack, suffers from anxiety, and when it bubbles over, it manifests physically. It feels as if I have taken him to the Emergency Department in every city we have ever visited. That may be a little bit of an exaggeration, but not much. I have heard doctor after doctor explain, while poring over Jack’s perfect ECG record, that, with an actual heart attack, there is often a tightness of the chest; some people describe it as a great weight pressing mercilessly against them. And, that is exactly what I am experiencing at this particular moment. The weight on my chest is heavy, pressing, and I am having difficulty breathing. My mind wanders, and I start questioning. Is this the day I die? Is this how I die? I am only fifty years old. Why now?
I remember the first trip we took out to Prince Edward Island. The night before we were to fly home, Jack woke up in a panic. It was 2 a.m. and I was tired. Really tired. We were flying home the next morning, and I simply wanted to sleep. In fact, I was of the opinion that I needed to sleep.
“I think I should go to the hospital,” he said.
I sighed. Loudly. I stumbled out of bed, found my jeans and reluctantly pulled my crumpled sweatshirt over bed-head hair. I was always plagued with niggling doubt that maybe this time it really was something serious.
“Ok, let’s go.”
Charlottetown at 2 a.m. is pretty quiet. The kind doctor on duty thoroughly examined Jack. Wisely reading the situation, the doctor asked, “Could you possibly be worried about anything?”
Jack does not like to fly. And by that, I mean he is absolutely shit-scared of flying. We usually have to drug him to even get him on a plane. I remember him being barely conscious after a flight to the U.K. The meds hadn’t worn off and coherence eluded him. At Heathrow, an intimidating and incredibly busy airport, the customs officer asked, “Where are you headed in the U.K?” Instead of mentioning our destination, Jack answered, “Two weeks.”
So, yes, the Charlottetown doctor had definitely read the situation. Jack answered, “Well,” slight pause, “we are flying back home tomorrow.”
“You don’t like to fly?” he queried, “Are you thinking about it; possibly worrying?”
“No, I’m not really thinking about it much.”
My tired eyes glared at him. Are you serious?
Jack continued, “Well, I don’t like flying, and I really am not looking forward to it. Maybe that is playing on my mind...a little bit.”
Now 4 a.m., we piled into the rented car and headed back to the B & B in an outlying area. I knew that we would have to get up in 2 hours and drive back this same route. We don’t speak and I sighed again…and again…and again.
I have seen the commercials. I know what I am supposed to do for a heart attack. I need to chew an Aspirin. I know where they are--under the cupboard in the bathroom. I need to will myself awake, go to the bathroom, get an Aspirin and chew it. Why won’t my eyes open? Please make my eyes open.
Then there was that small town in cottage country when they had to call and wake up the ER doctor at home to come in. The nurse set up the ECG and monitored him as we waited almost an hour for the doctor to travel in.
It was our first day of vacation, and again, I had fallen into a deep, relaxing sleep, not eager to be interrupted or spend my night at the local hospital. But, I found myself yet again, listening intently to what a heart attack feels like. It was concluded that this possibly was a pulled muscle in the shoulder area, probably incurred while doing some heavy lifting the day prior.
I am still unconscious, but I can feel awareness in the real world increasing. I can now tell that I was lying on my back. The terrible pain on my chest was more than just pressure now. I can feel sharp stabs as well. It is so intense. I desperately needed to open my eyes. Open your eyes, Ann, dammit!
Then there was the time when I was working as a wedding photographer, shooting a wedding about a 45-minute drive from home. I was in the middle of photographing the bridal party getting ready when my cell rang. It was Jack.
“I need to go to the hospital.”
We shared a vehicle, and I had it with me.
“I can’t really help you right at this moment,” I answered.
“But I need to go…now.”
Firmly I replied, “Jack, I am in the middle of photographing someone’s wedding; a day that will hopefully occur only once in their lifetime. What exactly do you want me to do?" I didn't have time for a lengthy discussion, "Never mind, I will see if my friend can take you.”
Irritation had escalated to resentment mixed with a little anger. I called a good friend and asked her to drive him to the hospital. She was just about to head the other direction to drive two hours to visit her parents, however, she sensed the desperation in my pleas.
“I’ll take him, but I can’t wait around for him. I will have to leave him there.”
I thanked her. It would have to do.
A few hours later, in a break after the ceremony, I called Jack. He was back at home. He was fine and, thankfully, nothing was physically wrong. However, he forgot to bring his wallet and didn’t have money for a taxi and didn’t have a way to get back, so he walked. It was about an 8-kilometers trek.
This is life and death Ann. Open your eyes. Find and chew an Aspirin. Then, call 9-1-1. You can do this. I am able to slightly pry my cement eyelids open. It feel like I am manually raising a heavy drawbridge with chains and gears, cranking hard to move even a millimetre at a time. Then, my eye lids move a little more, and finally I cross the moat into the land of awake. I do not expect what happens next. It is the furthest thing from my mind. I find myself staring into the yellow-green eyes of my spawn-of-Satan cat, who is standing on my chest, glaring at me, nonchalantly, as if to say, “What’s your problem?” To her disappointment, I gently remove her, and, miraculously, all my heart attack symptoms cease immediately.
Before now, when I looked at my husband’s anxiety, I saw a cute little five-pound kitten sitting on his chest. What’s all the fuss? It couldn’t be that bad? However, in his mind, he was experiencing a fatal heart attack. How scary would that be? How awful it must be to really—and I mean really—believe that you are about to die. What must that feel like?
My stirring disturbs his sleep, and Jack sits up and mutters, “I don’t feel right.”
What I do next isn’t nearly as remarkable as what I don’t: I don’t sigh loudly; my eyes don’t roll back, annoyed; no irritated comments are spewed. Instead I simply say, “I’m here. I’m sorry this is happening to you. Tell me how you feel.”
Although I didn’t have a heart attack that night, there was an attack on my heart. An arrow dipped in a small puddle of sympathy and understanding was cleverly, quickly and skilfully slung into the centre of my being, shattering a layer of prejudice and stigma. I become a little more sensitive that night, and it is the catalyst for me to encourage Jack to seek professional help. He does, and life is so much better—for both of us.
The author William S. Burroughs once wrote, “My relationships with my cats has saved me from a deadly, pervasive ignorance.”
If he only knew…
Gratitude
By Natalie Harris
Awake all night. Tossing and turning. Not in a bad way. It was like Christmas Eve. I finally succumbed to the fact that sleep and I were not friends, so I sat up and opened my curtains to a dark hospital parking lot and looked. I had time—more time—to just be, to just sit, to just accept, to just breathe. I noticed the spiders were gone. In every room I’ve stayed in, there was always one spinning a web in the corner of the window. Maybe they were gone because it looked chilly outside (I could tell by the steam leaving the rooftop pipes)…but I didn’t know for sure. I hadn’t felt the temperature outside for a week. Or maybe they were gone because they didn’t need to be there anymore. I was going home, and the home I watched them spin for days didn’t need to be watched anymore.
After a while of just looking outside, I got up and walked down the quiet nighttime hall to find the clock at the nurse’s station. Careful not to wake up a fellow patient who was asleep in a chair—for fear that she may begin her sad, relentless pay-phone calls too early. I walked in my socked feet and looked at the time that was so hard for me to keep track of for the last seven days: 5:45 a.m. OK, more time to wait. Getting a bit restless, I took down the poster on my wall by carefully peeling off the hospital stickers I used to adhere it. I rolled it up and wondered if I would ever look at it again? Probably not—too many memories. Then I walked back and forth in my room, a place that, in a matter of days, went from feeling jail-like to freedom, and I appreciated every step. In fact, I appreciated everything. My bed, my washroom, my window and a few books. I don’t need much to be OK.
With my mind too busy, I decided to try to read for a while, but I still couldn’t focus. Was the sun finally starting to rise or was it still the streetlight’s glow—and me willing it to be daytime? Finally, I heard a knock at the door. A new, smiling face introduced himself as my nurse. This was wonderful! In my clock-less room I now knew that it is almost eight o’clock! Time for my medications and almost time to go home.
The nurse asked me, “Do you have anything in the hospital safe?” I replied, “I don’t know.” Then, “Do you have belongings at the nurse’s station?” Once again I answered, “I don’t know.” This was a loud reminder that I was unable to recall my first two days here. It stung a bit. I’m not going to lie. But as time went by, I got used to saying why I was here. The word “overdose” rolled off my tongue with a strange ease.
I brushed my teeth and decided to treat myself to one last fresh face cloth that was waiting for me in the hall—all my face cloths at home were waiting to be washed. I started to pack. It didn’t take long. One grocery bag and I was done. And I was finally able to trade my pyjamas for jeans!
My nurse peeked his head in the door, “Do you want to have your breakfast?” The residents of the floor were slowly waking. I walked down the hall to lots of good mornings from now-familiar faces. I found my tray on the table in the dining room, which was odd. I usually found it on the tall rack with everyone else’s. Hmm, maybe this was what they did on the day you go home home—like a special celebration. Probably not. More likely my place on the rack had been taken. Replaced by another new face that will most likely be scared and wary to walk into the dining room, just as I was at first. Days ago, I didn’t want anyone to recognize me. I was a professional. I didn’t belong here! They’d made a horrible mistake. But now the room was so easy for me to enter, because after a lot of soul-searching (and slowly swallowing my pride), I realized with all my heart that I did belong here.
I contemplated high-fiving or hugging every patient when I left, but I decided that action might land me another week in Hotel Mental Health, so I didn’t. But I hoped they felt my gratitude for their non-judgmental acceptance of me in my farewells. For becoming my intriguing, entertaining and caring family for the week. I wondered when they would be going home. Or if they ever would. Or if they even had a home to go to.
So, as I waited for my boyfriend to walk through the door, I decided to look out the window and enjoy my cereal and shot of apple juice, and be grateful. The web that was so beautifully woven for me caught me. I love you.
P.S. I leave this pen on the side table, as it was given to me by a fellow patient. This is an object that was once viewed as dangerous and not allowed to be in my possession only days ago. How’s that for a reality check?
Dreaming
by Anonymous
The incessant screaming would not stop, the noise rattling in my psyche like a rickety old wooden roller coast—and not the good kind. You know, the kind at an old country fair; the kind that makes you question your life; the kind that feels like you are going to fall out of at every turn; the kind that makes you want to throw up.
Make it stop; make it stop played on continuous loop through my half-conscious brain. And then in hit me. BAM. As I slowly exited the world of sleep and crept tentatively into the world of awake, I realized that the noise was coming from me. I was the source of the noxious pollution of fear expressed as crazy, loud noise. The screaming was coming from my very own mouth.
“Greg,” I yelled, half hoping he wasn’t home. At least one thing was going my way—he had left. I was getting sick of exposing him to my recurring nightmares and hyper-vigilance to sound. He knew about most of my episodes. Well, some of them. Actually, just a small part of them…I kept most of my demons to myself--or so I thought. I did not want to inflict my internal turmoil on anyone else. They didn’t deserve it. However, when a monster nightmare boiled over the boundaries of my mind into the physical realm of my body, there was no hiding it. If I kicked, screamed, or sleep-walked, Greg knew what was up.
He handled it as good as he could. He knew when to tip-toe around me and when to ask questions. But, the distance was increasing, and I thought he didn’t really know what was going on in my hidden world, and I now questioned if I even knew what was going on in his.
“How are you?” he would question every day and every day I would answer, “Fine.”
Fine. What does that even mean? I wanted to say, “I’m dying. I’m scared. I’m alone and I’m afraid.” But, all I could say was, “Fine.”
The dream was always the same. It was a flashback from a very bad call I had attended two-years prior as a paramedic. The woman, her daughter, the scene. It was like no other. And their ghosts haunted my dreams almost every night for two years. I would ignore them, invite them to leave, try to talk to them. It didn’t matter. They had taken up space in my unconscious and nothing I could do would dissuade or evict them.
Work was getting harder and harder. I was irritable and would isolate.
“Wendy, want to come out with us to get a bite to eat after work?” my colleagues would ask relentlessly, time and time again. Well, until they simple stopped. I think that made it worse. I felt even more rejected and isolated.
I didn’t have a shift that day; Greg was gone. I looked at the clock. It was 1:30 p.m. I didn’t know whether to be upset at myself for sleeping so long or grateful I didn’t have to experience half the day conscious. I was often conflicted about my actions.
I got up and decided to go for a walk by the canal. Maybe that would clear my muggy head. I pulled on my favourite jeans and old sweatshirt. Showering was not on today’s agenda anyway. But, the second I stepped out of the house a motorcycle flew by, engine rumbling deeply, making me jump out of my skin. My heart raced uncontrollably and I burst into tears. Why was this happening to me? Why?
I turned around and bolted back inside. The tears were overflowing beyond belief. I crumpled to the floor in the kitchen and held my head in my hands, body rocking forward and back.
I don’t know how long I lay there, nor did I hear Greg come home. But, I do remember his hand on my shoulder and his soft voice, “We need to get you to the hospital.”
Hospital? Hospitals don’t have a cure for crying.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why?” Greg echoed incredulously. “We both know you are suffering. You don’t tell me, but I can see it. There is something so wrong. You are in pain.”
I looked at him as I had so many times before, but this was the first time I really saw him. I was trying to hide, but it wasn’t working. He knew. He saw through me despite my façade.
I fell into his arms, too tired to fight any more. He drove me to the hospital and held my hand as we spoke to the crises team. I wasn’t a threat to myself, so we drove back home that night. There was a plan and a team and the most remarkable thing of all—acknowledgment that what I was experiencing was real.
Then the most remarkable thing happened that night: I slept without dreaming.
Zero
By Michelle Sertage
Eating is hard when the weight of your flaws looks like 30 extra pounds in the mirror. They say that my eyes are morphing my body into something it’s not. I think to myself that if I could do that, I’d be skinnyby now. I don’t say this out loud; in fact, I have been hesitant to say anything at all. Being here is like being under arrest with no lawyer. Everything that comes out of my mouth can and will be used against me in a court of doctors, no doubt. They will do anything to keep me locked up for longer than I need to be, their little human test subject, I swear. At least that’s what I think. They say I’m sick, that my thoughts are tainted by an intruder who will not stop until my heart does.
35 beats per minute, 34, 33…
A cold coin pressed on my chest, a gentle voice telling me to take deep breaths. As she lowers the
stethoscope, the eyes of my nurse meet mine. I recognize that look; like she is searching for something, like my eyes are a puzzle to solve. She asks me if I am dizzy, tells me that my heart is sleepy today. I shake my head, absent-mindedly. I am now focused on clenching my stomach muscles. I heard somewhere that if you do it enough, you will start to see clearly defined abs. I can feel the food I’m forced to ingest pooling at my midsection, threatening to balloon out to a physique most accurately represented by the Pillsbury Dough Boy. With the compulsory high calorie-fat-salt-carb meals I’m fed and the authoritative voices warning me to not-move-a-muscle, the ab clenching is more and more necessary every day.
The nurse brings me back to reality, telling me she will be back soon with my lunch. I try to smile and fail. Those muscles have grown weaker than my will to survive. Giving me an empathetic look, the nurse lays her warm, smooth hands on top of mine. I watch as a frown crosses her face; my hand is as cold and lifeless as a corpse. She quickly leaves.
Death makes people uncomfortable.
It wasn’t always like this. I used to be vibrant and adventurous. I used to eat pizza and popcorn on Friday nights with my family with extra energy to see friends and make people laugh. Somewhere along the line, a perfect storm of events spun together in a giant hurricane of self-loathing, perfectionism, and fear. The aftermath was an apple for dinner one night and a rice cake the next. Although I was starving, it wasn’t food I was hungry for, it was control. Everything was chaos, but at least I knew I was the one deciding to bring the fork to my mouth, or the one deciding not to. And so, I didn’t.
Fading away is easy to do when done correctly. First, you eat a little healthier, maybe denying a dessert here or there. It will feel powerful. Maybe you walk for 20 minutes after dinner. Soon the 20 minutes will become 30, 40, 1-hour walks, then runs. The dessert-denier inside you turns into a carb-denier, then a dinner-denier; and suddenly you are fuelling your two-hour runs with a couple of baby carrots. You haven’t responded to your friends calls in over a month and they have stopped trying. You will think it’s better this way, that they could never understand you. And in all fairness, they don’t. No one does. That’s why you’re here under these florescent hospital lights watching a nurse bring in a tray of microwaved food to your bedside table.
Food is medicine, the doctors tell me. I repeat this mantra as I study the plate in front of me. The more I think about how this meal will soon be littering the confines of my small, pink stomach, the more I am revolted. Food is medicine? To me, mealtimes are war. Food is the weapon, meant to destroy me from the inside out. The voice in my head screams at me every time I lift up the fork.
LAZY! FAT! SLOB!
Halfway through the meal, a sense of defeat overwhelms me, and I burst into tears. I need the voice to be quiet, even if just for a minute. The nurse urges me to keep eating, tells me I’m doing well. I continue to sob uncontrollably, unable to go on. The nurse sighs and picks up the tray. As she is about to walk out the door, she turns to face me.
“You know, the more nourishment you give your body, the more nourishment you will get out of life. Think about all the beautiful experiences you have had. If you don’t allow yourself to eat, the possibility of a beautiful future will be taken away. Be strong and fight for your life.”
Her words linger, as she knew they would. It is in this moment I realize that the looming threat of death doesn’t scare me. That is precisely why I don’t eat. I want to disappear. Size zero, zero calories, zero pounds, zero life.
No, I am not scared to die.
Maybe, in fact, I am scared to live.