Stepping

I continue to be frustrated and frightened. I still have fluid on my lungs. The left side of my heart is stiff–it doesn’t relax like it should, so it creates a bottleneck of fluid in my lungs. My heart–like the rest of me–needs a chill pill and to relax, but neither of us really knows how to do that.

Huzzah.

“You can’t focus on the struggle just right now. Look how far you’ve come, how much you’ve overcome.”

I’ve tried to forget. But I suppose I can’t. Or shouldn’t.

There’s a step in our home. Just one. The living area is separated from the bedrooms and bathrooms by a single, tall step. You see, the bedroom area is built above the basement. There’s a little lift. One of my first days home from heart surgery, my husband and mother-in-law had to help me up that step.

I was recovering from my third time on the ventilator. I had pounds of excess fluid in my body. I had to wear compression socks and wrap my feet to keep them from ballooning. I couldn’t wear normal shoes. My legs were weak and heavy. I couldn’t stand without help or high arms on a chair.

In the hospital, I’d manage to get myself out of the hospital recliner and make the short walk to the toilet, shuffling and holding out my hands to grab whatever I could to steady myself. Chris eventually bought me a walker that I called “Chuck Norris” (… because WALKER Texas Ranger, get it??? AM I FUNNY YET?), and I’d scoot with that thing across the tiled floor to the toilet, and then I’d pull the red cord so the nurse or care partner could appear, offer me an arm (or two … sometimes it took two of them) to help me stand to wash my hands and lumber back to the recliner, panting for breath.

But now I was in my own home. There were no nurses. No monitors. No red cords. Just me, my husband, and my precious MIL.

And that damned step.

I put my walker up on the step, intending to pull myself up. I got one foot up. One foot in a compression sock, a wrap, and an oversized flip flop. Halfway there. I lift my second foot, slowly, weakly. I can barely get it to clear the step, hauling my body on that walker, every ounce of my strength.

And the toe of my shoe caught the step.

Down I went.

Down went the walker.

Down on my hands and knees.

Then the panic set in.

They had told me in the hospital to be careful with my heart, not to be bent over or upside down or too flat, and here I was, bent over, panting for breath, heart pounding.

My God. My God. I’m stuck. I was too heavy for someone to lift. I couldn’t lift myself. My God. I’m going to die here, on the floor, on my knees. My God. What am I going to do.

I begin to weep. I wail, angrily, at the top of my lungs, “GOD DAMNIT! GOD DAMNIT GOD DAMNIT!” I don’t like to swear, but I could think of nothing else to say. Nothing else to express my rage, humiliation, fear, and hopelessness. “GOD. DAMNIT.”

My mother-in-law tries to console me. Tries to firmly calm me. My husband says things. I don’t remember the words, only the tone, the message. That I wouldn’t be stuck here. That they could stand me up. Somehow, they do get me up, and I scoot my walker into the bedroom.

And I don’t go down that step for as long as I can stand it. I nest in the back end of the house. I eat my meals alone in my recliner. I do not face that step again unless I absolutely have to, and, even then, I don’t tackle that step alone for a long time. Not until the physical therapist makes me. And I don’t ever try to go up or down the step if Chris isn’t in the house to rescue me if I get stuck.

Eventually, I can do it alone with the walker. Right foot first. We discover that my left side is slightly weaker due to my strokes, so I take all steps right foot first. Then I could leave the walker at the step, use it to pull myself up, and then scoot it aside. Then I can do it with just my cane.

And, one day, I do it alone. And then I do it again. And again, and again.

I used to be so afraid of that step. Now I crest it multiple times a day without even thinking about it.

Except sometimes.

Sometimes, when I stare at that patch of hallway and remember the helplessness of not being able to lift my own body. Of the panic. Of the utter defeat of knowing what you need to do and it feeling so impossible. Such a simple thing–get to your feet–and how that felt like an insurmountable task.

I can stand on my own, now. I can climb steps.

Maybe, one day, my heart will take its own leaps. I don’t know.

I hope so.