I really had no idea how frustrating Injured Reserve is.

Even if it is a temporary situation, which ohmydeargods I hope it is, it is excruciating.  I’ve grown weary of getting winded when I climb the stairs to go to my bedroom or the bathroom; I feel useless that I can’t even do the dishes after enjoying a meal that my husband made – following the million dietary restrictions I now have – after he has already put in a full work day.

Nothing is actually back to normal.

It’s been long enough since the heart attack that folks other than my husband forget I still can’t do much of anything.  I look the same as I did pre-heart attack to the kids and I’ve been home for over a month so it’s easy to sometimes forget and ask me to run up to their rooms or down to the basement to see something they made or to do some other perfectly normal activity.

I knew I was impatient, but wow! I am really impatient.

Okay, I know how very lucky I am to have survived “The Widowmaker” – a type of cardiac event that so very few people survive.  Perhaps I should be working more on gratitude about that.  But it’s been 6 weeks.  Can’t I be better now? I’ve been good and taken all my meds and eaten what I am supposed to and gone to cardiac rehabilitation where octogenarians routinely run circles around me on the equipment… so when do I graduate to All Better?

It’s like when my friend Mark Harp died.  I did all the right stuff – got his funeral set up, held a wake, set up a fund to help his girlfriend and family – and he still stayed dead.  To this very day… still dead.   I know that is irrational, but it’s a feeling I have often had after dealing with a loss.   It just seems unfair.  I proved I could survive the ordeal; now gimme my thing back.

Every problem I had before the heart attack has waited for me.

The heart attack gets you a free pass to or out of virtually nothing.  All those bills I was struggling to pay?  Still there. Except now I also have medical bills and am making zero money so it’s all going on the credit card, which is a whole new nightmarishly stressful issue.  The lingering cases from my old firm that still need resolving?  Still lingering. Except now I get anxiety attacks when I think about them because I know stress was such a factor in the heart attack.  You get the idea.

Wow, maybe I should have titled this “Grumpy Whining: Six Weeks Post-Heart Attack”