#4 of the Matrix.....

#4 of the Matrix………Physical Strength

In terms of the strength I have regained, I often think of the saying about not being able to see light until you’ve experienced the darkness.

If you were to ask 50 heart attack patients to describe their experience, you would probably get 50 different replies….. Pain is often mentioned as the most obvious symptom, but for me, it was the total, sudden loss of strength and control.

My first feeling was flu like symptoms with a sudden onset of weakness. I put my right hand to my forehead which felt very cold and clammy while at the same time my internal feeling was of heat and feverish like. I managed to stand up and say that I didn’t feel very good and must have the flu, and at that time the weakness overtook me. I also had extreme pain in my right shoulder and back. Feeling nauseous, I was barely able to walk down the hall way headed to our bathroom, which is off of our bedroom, at the other end of the house…

Things become blurry at this time, but I remember sitting on the stool with my sister kneeling in front of me holding me upright in a sitting position. I expressed fear about falling to the floor. I could not hold myself up, and at that point my husband returned from town, and my sister yelled at him to come back to where we were. He said the minute he looked at me, something told him that this was more than the flu….. He made me swallow two aspirin then he and my sis got on each side of me and literally drug me into the bedroom and laid me on the bed.

I didn’t realize it then, but at that time all of my organs were completely shutting down…..I could not see, I heard very little, and what I did hear, I could not organize…nothing in me had any control. My husband called our daughter who works at the hospital said he was bringing me over because I was really sick. She said “no dad, I’m putting you on hold and I’m calling 911”, and the story continues from there. I have to say it was the first time in my 65 years of living that I was totally unable to physically help myself. I lay there, completely unable to move.

Other than an intermediate flash of what was going on around me I don’t remember much else until I woke up in ICU several days later….

After becoming somewhat aware throughout that day, when everyone had left and I was alone, I decided I needed to try to move myself. This was not an easy decision, I could just as easily have lain there. However, in my half drugged state, it became a desperate requirement, as I had to prove to myself that I was alive.

Normally as a thought enters our brain that we want to lift our hand for instance, the brain sends a message to that limb, and movement comes in micro seconds and the hand lifts immediately, seemingly automatic without effort. In my condition, that did not happen…. The first process was making my brain accept the thought that I wanted to move, then secondly, I had to figure out how I was going to do it. I remember the effort it took to raise my head from the pillow, then seeing the bars they had on each side of my bed and deciding those would be my tools. With sheer will and extreme effort, I inched my hand towards the bar. To fully explain my weakness, from the time I had decided to try and move, the movement to this point had probably taken at least 20 minutes.

With my hand now on the bar, there must have been billions of tiny cells, and nerves working throughout my system to force my body to move any further…. Next, I had to tighten my arm and other muscles in order to pull. It took many tries to make that muscle realize that it had work to do. With that, I knew I had to lift my upper body. Resting between tries, and falling many times back into a prone position, I finally reached a partial point of raising enough to rest on my elbow…. Every time I tried after that, I was able to go a little higher until finally I was able to pull myself into a sitting position.

I had to go through the same process at a later time in order to make my legs move. The next day with help, I was able to sit up and dangle my legs off the side of the bed, and eventually I was able to stand up and sit in a chair… Being moved from ICU to a regular room, a day later I was allowed with the aid of a walker to walk a few feet and of course in time, I was able to walk my way back to normal.

Physical strength – Another thing we take for granted but I now fully appreciate.