The first part of this year is always just WAM! WAM! with reminders of five years ago. February is heart month and Grady wants to participate in Jump Rope for Heart and has for the past two years.
He likes the prizes. He likes "winning."
And every year I have to explain why I *let* him participate.
This year it sunk in a bit more. And I did go there. I did say ... without advances in medical treatment your father would not be here. He'd have died. So we raise money for the American Heart Association so that someone else's Daddy can still be here too.
And it's been five years so I'm better about talking about it. But like right now ... I can add up numbers in my head and know that had things continued on the path that we were on ... sometime in the year 2014 he'd have gone for a run and he wouldn't have come back.
The weird part about that is that's not drama. That is fact told to us by the doctor. The regurgitation in his heart would have reached an unsustainable level and his heart would have expanded until it no longer functioned. Any exertion would have put him into cardiac arrest.
His heart was a time bomb. Blood flowing the wrong way and enlarging it by the smallest measurement, every single day. Exertion would have increased it, he'd have been short of breath. But he would have just thought he was out of shape. He would have pushed through.
Shortly after stopping. His heard would have then stopped. And he'd have died.
I'd probably have been pregnant with Julia. And sometime before her birth he'd have died. Three children, fatherless.
And that's just fact.
If it weren't for Grady.
This is my father's take ...
Because Grady has eosinophilic esophagitis. It was six months after Grady's diagnosis. Lewis was still having food impaction and hiccup issues. And I got it in my head that this was genetic. That my grandfather, my brother, my father and now my husband all had this disease. I felt like it was everywhere. For my purposes it was all around me. Evidenced by extreme vomiting every single day by the two men in my life. (Lew didn't vomit every day, but he had symptoms).
So I made him an appointment at Grady's specialists office.
And in clearing him for the endoscopy he heard the heart murmur that saved his life.
But would I have sent him to the GI doc if I hadn't been dealing with one so in-depth with Grady? My dad thinks not. Grady, and EoE, saved Lew's life.
And every year about this time when you start seeing me post for Jump Rope for Heart or you see my yearly annoying "get your physical" posts ... all the realities of that year come back.
And this is why I don't watch crap, emotional, melodrama television shows that sensationalize heart attacks and widow-hood. For my part I came close enough to that reality. I don't need to watch it on television to know how much that would hurt. For too many people they have lost fathers to heart attack. I can't imagine watching it play out on television ... for entertainment.
No. Thanks.
I have too much stress wrapped around hearts. Too many unknowns. We do the best we can. We get our hearts checked. We stay fit. We eat (mostly) good. You can't worry about these things because that steals your present and your future.
But this time of year as I'm filling out checks and signing G up for his fundraiser ... it kinda slams into me. My life would have been a whole lot different if it weren't for Western Medicine and the advancements that have been made. They can do a lot. They can save lives.
So I donate to AMA and CURED (which is the research grant arm of the Cincinnati clinic that specializes in EoE). I live my best life. I try to not worry. I hug my babies. And I pray.
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