Echo results

A year ago yesterday, I saw my cardiologist in the afternoon, following our appointment with Sandy's oncologist in the morning. My heart was fine, and the doctor reassured me that he didn't expect anything to change with my valve for at least a decade. Two days later, everything went to hell.

So it may not have been the brightest move to schedule a cardiology appointment for June 14 this year. My body has been tensing in anticipation of the painful anniversaries ahead in the next five weeks, and I already associate my last cardiology visit with Sandy's sudden decline. My body memory has conflated everything that happened that week. (Hmm... I wonder whether paying my estimated taxes tomorrow will upset me, too. Probably.)

As grief has ebbed a little bit, I've been struck by how calm my life is now. For more than five years, we moved from one crisis to another. As soon as one thing was resolved, we received devastating news about something else. Every time I started to breathe a little more easily, poking my head out and starting to engage in the world, something threw us off course again. Now, except for the horrible void in my life that is Sandy's absence, everything is going smoothly. I'm able to enjoy the calm and set forward-looking goals instead of spending all my time adapting to changes and trying to stay ahead of them. I have now the sort of life I always wanted to get back to with Sandy: a life of gardening, biking, friends, work, politics, and volunteer engagements that flows according to my interests and energy levels. It had been a long time since either of us had that. And I don't trust it.

My cardiologist said I can do anything I want. But what I
want is to play with Sandy. And I can't figure out how to do
that, even with a healthy heart valve.

So I went in this morning worried that my echo results would be the next devastating news. After all, we alternated before: Sandy's cancer, my heart, Sandy's cancer; it's time for my heart again, right? When I told my cardiologist that I'm waiting for more bad news, he smiled and said, "Well, you won't be getting any from me."

My echo results were good. Grief has apparently not done any harm to my heart; my valve looks great; heart function is normal. The bits that were narrow or slightly enlarged before are all just as they were two years ago. He did a pretty thorough physical exam, spending more time observing arteries in my neck than usual, watching the waveflows and other aspects of the pumping blood, and pronounced it all to be acting as expected. He told me to keep doing whatever I want to do, enjoy the bike, have fun, and to come see him again in two years, when we'll do another echo just to check on everything.

Honestly, I'd expected to feel tremendous relief if the echo results were good. (And I knew, logically, that they probably would be, despite my superstitions.) But I didn't feel relief. I just felt exhaustion and despair. A year ago, despite my focus on Sandy, I'd left the office delighted that he was so optimistic about my valve. I'd been buoyant when I returned home and shared the news with Sandy, who was also pleased to hear it. But my healthy heart valve didn't keep Sandy alive last year. And it won't bring her back this year. And this week, with June 15 coming tomorrow, I'm not sure anything short of her return could actually leave me feeling buoyant.