My husband made a statement pretty early on in this recovery process that’s become an aphorism we say to each other on a fairly regular basis now. It’s a simple truth:

Heart Attacks aren’t Magic.

I know this may sound like a very obvious statement, but you kind of expect them to be. A major trauma has happened in your life and somehow it seems like everything should be different. Everything is different in certain ways – for example, I can’t salt my food anymore and I need to monitor my saturated fats and my vitamin K consumption. I need to take 14 pills every day. I can’t climb a flight of stairs without getting so winded I need to sit down. Lots of things have changed, just none of the stuff that you’d want to have change.  All the petty problems and annoyances are still here. All the little stressors continue to poke at you like Lilliputian spears. The big stuff, too – work problems, financial issues, parenting struggles – it’s all waiting for you when you get home from the hospital.

I still have all the same bills that I had before the heart attack. I have all the same unfinished casework from my old law firm. I still haven’t found a non-law job to replace the firm and now I’m not really in a position where I can look for work seeing as I don’t have the stamina to make it through cooking a meal or doing the dishes. Plus, now I’ve got $30k in hospital bills. Thank the gods we have health insurance so we only have to pay a portion of that. But even the co-pays on my numerous prescriptions add up to about $100 a month. Heart attacks, despite their power over life and death, just aren’t magic… or at least not magic enough to pay my mortgage.

You hear about people who have had a heart attack and get a new lease on life. They sell everything they own, buy a sailboat and sail around the world. I don’t really know how they pull that off unless they just happen to be the sort of people who could have afforded to drop everything and sail around the world before their heart attack. I could sell a kidney and I probably wouldn’t be able to buy a big wheel. And big wheels only get you so far.

I’ve been considering that maybe it’s just a different type of magic. Maybe heart attacks are kind of magical if they change your perspective to make you appreciate the things you have. If they make you stop and smell the roses or appreciate the beauty in everyday scenes as you drive down the road or walk up your driveway.

I may be outing myself as the least grateful lucky person on earth, but for me, the heart attack wasn’t that kind of magic either. I already stopped and smelled roses, quite literally. I’d go for long drives with my husband to enjoy the scenery; we go out of our way to see the deer that live in the area; we make a point to actually notice the sunset and admire the colors in the sky. I’m pretty good at appreciating everyday beauty. And I’ve always been sincerely grateful for the wonderful family I have; my friends and support system; the privilege of being born when and where I was; the amount of travel I have been able to do; and the amazing things I’ve been able to see in my life.

I know that I’m incredibly fortunate. I survived a particular kind of heart attack that only between 3% and 20% of people ever wake up from. I guess if there’s magic in this situation, that’s it. I’m not dead. And that’s huge. However, not having known how much peril my life was in at the time dulls even that a bit, though. Never having thought I might die makes the fact that I didn’t much more of an abstract thing. It’s like if you had a ‘fender bender’ on the way to work today. You’d be unlikely to have it dramatically change the way you look at the world or make you affirmatively happy to be alive. It simply wouldn’t occur to you that you could have died, just like it doesn’t occur to you that you didn’t get hit by a car in the parking garage or fall to your death in the elevator.

I guess the positive and uplifting message I am sending into cyberspace today is:

Heart attacks aren’t magic. In fact, they totally suck.

Please try not to have one. Mind your diet, get exercise, quit smoking, and learn how to recognize if you’re having a heart attack (or stroke). Just take care of you. Most likely, the world is a better place because you’re in it – at least to the people you love.  And even if not, the only way you can work on changing that is by staying alive.