I couldn't believe I was having another HA

I will be 60 next month and have survived two heart attacks. I am still uncertain about how I feel in my body or about my life after experiencing another HA. I was at my mothers for Mothers Day and was excited about the outdoor umbrella I bought her. She spends too much time inside and I wanted to give her a good reason to get outside for a little fresh air. So I showed up with a bright red umbrella and a yummy salad I made to celebrate the day. But damn it, it feel apart fast. I needed to overturn the umbrella stand because it was full of sticks and rocks used to hold the too small umbrella from times past. Their stand is a half circle of cement and I didn’t for a second think I couldn’t flip it over. But that is all it took, that was the beginning of my next heart event. I immediately got dizzy and light headed and knew I needed to get down on the floor.

I left my mother on the porch and went inside to lay on the living room floor. Seriously, I was having a full body hum and got really hot. I stayed on the floor for over 30 minutes trying to regulate my breathing. No chest pain, just the tension in my body is what I remember and my mother standing over me worried. I can still hear her asking me not to have a HA on her living room floor, I was powerless over what was happening and just stayed on the floor. About 30-40 minutes later my mother offered me a baby aspirin. LIGHTBULB moment and I remembered my nitro pills I had in the car. I have a locket ring I have been carrying nitro pills in since my first HA 1/26/20, but not that day. It was the strangest walk of my life honestly, I could feel my engine chugging.

About 15 minutes after taking that pill I felt better and drove myself home from Stinson Beach. I knew I could not survive an ambulance ride in the back on Mount Tam, I get car sick really bad. Even as I type this I cannot believe how easy it was for me to drive myself home, I felt tension in my body everywhere, but none of this is new for me. My body has suffered so much, it is clearly what it knows so it got me home. I did not go to the hospital until the next morning, while getting out of the shower it was clear I was not right. I had a 98% block in my RCA and was just a moment away from another massive HA. How have I survived two like this I keep asking myself, anyone want to clue me in?

It was so very different this time at the hospital, I drove myself and walked into the Kaiser ER in Terra Linda at 6:30am. I lost memory this time, things I had done before the HA got lost during the cath procedure. But I do remember my hello to the two guys behind the desk who got up to greet me. I said “Good timing right?” to the empty waiting room. We all laughed on our way into the ER. Last time I was surrounded by 10 men all doing something to me at once, calling out across me. It is really amazing to look back, this time I remember being all worried about bothering everybody for a false alarm! I really have this little “not enough” message weaved into my being and it presents big time when ever I think I need help from others.

Of course everyone took the best care of me, it took three hours to test my heart enzymes to verify that I had indeed had another HA the day before at my mothers. I of course started to cry because now I knew I wasn’t wasting anyones time and could actually focus on me. I constantly have to remind myself that I am worth it, I am not stupid. I understand the message and yet have never been able to turn it off. The not stupid part is having the logic of the irrational thought and still not have the power to not feel the pain of it. Logic should win in my head but never.

Once it was clear what had happened it was all about keeping me stable until there was an opening in the Cath Lab in SF. Keep in mind, it is Monday at 10:00 am as I get transferred upstairs to monitor until they can ship me to the city. But there was no openings in the city and I had to wait until Wednesday at 8:00am to get into SF. There were two other people on the floor in the same place as me, we all were waiting for Wednesday morning. We were all on the edge of another HA being watched for any change that would force an earlier transfer. The next day I had a bleep on my EKG that had me in a transport to SF so I was where I needed to be if anything else happened.

The crew for my first ambulance ride were amazing, it is in moments like these that I am reminded about who I really am. It is in these said moments that I know the universe has my back! I am blessed in so many ways, I have lived in a body that was critically wounded when I was small and didn’t know it. I have looked at life from such a different view because of it and I am glad to finally understand the truth and I am glad to know everyone doesn’t feel this way in their body! I feel gratitude around this knowledge, this understanding.

I think I cried for days on end this time, the result of another heart event brings blood thinners back on board for me and they are here to stay now that I have three stents in my heart. I have a collapsed disk in my neck that needs repair and four bulging disks in my lower lumbar sending nerve pain down my legs. I think I will just leave the details of all the other shit off to the side. I cried because the need to fix me goes away when the heart screams the loudest. <3

A letter from my mother

I found a copy of this letter recently, I had forgotten about it. But what moves me is the real bare emotion around motherhood, around how hard it is. How no matter how much we may love our children we are still human and there is no rule book. My mother has been my best friend most my life and this letter just reminds me about how deep her feelings around this hard time hit her as a woman and a mother! Thanks Mom, xx B

Dear Bridgit,

A letter comes from the woman child, the depths of feeling overwhelms me. She writes over and over of her feeling and her love. My heart spills over with thankfulness.

I left home when she was fifteen, one of the “runaway mothers”. Many have followed my steps in the last few years. I feared that she may not have had enough of my woman-ness, of my love.

But she knows, she sees, she feels. She craves to make her own space for herself, of herself and by herself. Only then can she come forth with fullness and wholeness. Perhaps she’ll never need to run away.

Barbara Lee, circa 1980

For my friend Julie

I want to share some of the experiences I had in the making of my goddesses for the 100 Goddess Project. I have found a different experience in the making of each one, can you imagine how fun that can be?

I made this with a certain person in mind and she is a spit fire! Coming from me that is a crazy good compliment, I was so inspired by a recent visit with her and could not stop the need to work from that feeling. I get super excited making goddesses and it fills me up somewhere inside every time I get to make one for someone I know!

I get to bring my friendship into it, the things I know or remember about them become inspiration for the flow of the piece. My friend Julie has this really powerful energy and it is bright. We have done some really fun things together, we have stories I am happy to look back on. I have always considered her a brave warrior and so beautiful.

I got a call one day sometime after I had delivered this piece and she left a really excited message about wanting to talk to me. She had this moment while looking at this piece and realized the location of the line I had drawn was the same location as the blood vein used to save her life while fighting Breast Cancer. I was vibrating as I listened to her explain how it made her feel. I can’t ask for much more than that!

What came up for me was that I remember thinking how strange it was that I was painting this line down her. I had a moment where I thought I wasn’t in the right place and should put it down and glaze it later. But I had already not been happy with this piece after the fire, her chest was con-caved a little and I just thought maybe I would begin a new one. So I put her in the NO-GO pile for a few months, it was a desire to glaze with my friend Cynthia that had me looking for something to work on. We really enjoy sitting at my grandmothers table and working together, there is a magic that happens for us there. I won’t be able to easily explain it, but I can share that this table is my favorite possession!

I went directly to the pile and pulled her out and did this to her! The colored ones get a top coat after you paint all the colors, so by the time I fired it I didn’t remember exactly what I ended up doing. When Julie and I spoke I remembered as I pulled her from the pile that day thinking I was bringing her back to life by pulling her from the NO-GO pile.

This piece taught me a new kind of freedom, more than ever before and I am so grateful that she was so perfect for my friend. She is what I would call groovy, just like my friend!

Looking back on the making of #76 - The hug her

This 100 Goddess project is all about creating something beautiful for women. Each piece bears the message “you are loved” and my wish is that we may feel the ever present echo of love in our lives. My goddesses are made to help be one of your reminders. Filled with love and with light, I do the dance with the shadow so she can be a light for you. B.Lee

I remember making this goddess to love herself, she is a hugger! I call her “the hug her” because it is the message. If we can learn to do that for ourselves, to shine our compassionate hearts back at ourselves and feel the care of a self hug. What can’t we do? The world is a big a place and we need a place and a space to be there for each other and ourselves. Set the example, be this! Love yourself kindly, forgive and remember it is our differences that makes us so special! She came out of the kiln cracked, one arm pulled away.

Since I started the project I’ve had a little corner I called the NO-GO PILE. I learned so much from that damn pile, fills me with joy just thinking about it. Not one goddess ever stayed there, but many passed through. This one was not easy to repair, I couldn’t find an air dry clay that matched her beautiful chocolate color. So she lived in the pile for awhile, one day I decided she needed to be seen and I surrendered and patched her with the off color clay. Then I topped her with paint. But I swear she refused to leave easily and the rock I mounted her on does not balance perfectly. Ha, doesn’t that sound a lot like life?

This experience I am having by fulfilling my desire to send “positive affirmations for love” out in the world for women through my sculptures has changed me. I have always shared how wonderful it has been that this project gave as much to the giver as the gifted and continues to do so.

What you can’t tell here in this picture is that she survived a house fire in Santa Rosa as well, and is now back where she belonged! Thank you Shonne for sharing this picture and how special she is for you!

Imagine your head hanging on by a thread!

It is now 48 years after I almost died at the hands of a vending machine manufactured in the 60’s. Solid steel intended to hold glass coke bottles and such, plastic was not a building tool back then. I can hear my parents telling the story of the pipe that should of killed me that day. The enormity of what really happened to me that day only I understand.

This is where “she is a lucky girl” came into play, I think I absorbed that message and excepted things or tolerated things with a tilted view after this. When I took that step back and partially fell onto a dirt patch with sticks and string around it. If you hear my mother tell it, all the sticks around that new patch of something were sticks except one. The one that was between my chest and underarm when I fell was a metal pipe, which fit perfectly under my arm and only left a scratch on me! But for my parents it was the idea that I could of fallen an inch to the left and been pieced by that pipe. Today I see things differently, today I recognize that pipe saved my life. It busted through that machine as it crashed down on my little body, tore right through the front and I think hit something solid. It stopped that machine before it could finished me off. My mother is an amazon, I remember hearing everyone running toward me. My Mother got to me first and picked that fucking thing up off me like it was made of cardboard! I know others got there before she had to test if she could move it away from me, but she lifted that thing up with a monster strength most only read about! It was deer season 1971and we were headed out to take our ATC-90 for its first spin in the snow on one of my fathers hunting trips. The owner of all the vending machines had just walked away from putting them all up off the ground using 2x4 and such. He did not level his machines, just got them off the wet ground in time for the first snow. He was right there with my parents giving away whatever was in the machine to everyone since it spilled all over the ground around me when it got tossed off me. There was no blood, I couldn’t put weight on my leg and I am sure I was screaming. We loaded up and headed for camp. I will never forget listening to my parents argue about taking me to the hospital, my father was pretty set I would be fine if I stayed off it a few days. Well I do think we got a few miles out of town before my brother Jon started screaming too, he could see the bone moving in my leg. Needless to say we turned around, my brothers were pretty mad at me. Until a few hours later and the X-ray showed I had three fractures and would have to stay the night. Then they came into the room scared, crying and apologizing. We used to be a tight family, until the divorce. Nothing I thought I knew ended up to be true, and I know I am not alone here. While we waited hours to be seen my leg got bigger and bigger which is why I stayed the night. They thought it might move and have to be reset in the morning! While waiting my mother found a hunting magazine in the waiting room on the table. On the front of the magazine she found someone had written my fathers name! We had never been in this hospital before, my mother got a message that day from that in which we would talk about again and again over the years.

My father had to hold my hand while they set my leg, I was surrounded it seemed. It is intense being little and knowing something bad is coming! I can truly say I have had worse, but that would come much later. My dad was white as a sheet, I think I was killing his hand as I screamed as two people or more pulled on my leg. People at the top of me holding my shoulders down and the bottom of me. Holding you down on the table as a few try to pull off your leg! I’m being a baby, but I was then!

Today, I cannot get the care I need at Kaiser!

Post Heart Attack - day 32

I just got back from my Healthier Heart class with Julie at Kaiser. There were two other patients there and one wife. Nice and small, comfortably personal. I met Russ and his wife Melanie who are vegan, I want to make some vegan friends! That is the universe working for me, yes!

Intense learning all about what actually happens in the body and all around heart disease. I didn’t realize the build up in our arteries are actually in the lining of that artery not inside the open space. I was really happy to learn more and ask questions.

I am all about how to prevent another right now, that and how to really know the difference from my normal everyday upper body pain to the thing that almost took me out. I am not afraid of dying, I do not remember ever being afraid of dying. Since around 8 years old I have understood it was the plan, no one gets to pass it up. I have friends on the other side and have no fear of crossing the rainbow bridge. I just can’t leave before the dog, I promised her I would be around for her for all her tomorrows. My son is living his life and in many ways I think my mothering holds him back. I know I am not alone, but I feel this single mother thing that never leaves me! I still buy things in quantity so I don’t worry about running out.

January 26th it was all about not dying next to my friend on the way to the hospital, I couldn’t imagine doing that to him. Just as I couldn’t imagine hitting the floor in the middle of Della Frattoria’s during their gathering, and got the hell out of there just in time.

Today in class we learned the 7 biggest causes of heart disease.

1. Smoking

2. High Cholesterol

3. High Blood Pressure

4. Diabetes

5. Overweight

6. Excessive emotional stress

7. Genetics- Inherit traits from parents

6 and 7 have me hooked in and left me feeling powerless!

As I said before my family is full of bad hearts, at this point there is no way to argue with this result. My doctors are worried about my depression, my lack of appetite. I’ve had adverse reactions to medicine I have tried to help with depression and have had no relief in that regard. I am thankful to know it helps many I know and that keeps a small flame of hope burning. I’ve been getting emotional over father daughter commercials most of my life and now all family stories that are sweet do it. I cannot lie and say I am not effected every day by the distance between me and my brothers, the stinkin thinking in my head around that has not been good for me. I try and hide it and leave it behind me but I sure didn’t fool my own heart.

The truth is we cannot change things that are not our’s to adjust, we can be hurt, complain, even push and shove about it. But if that reality lives outside your own lane you have no power to change that, there is no life hack that works here. We only have the power to adjust how it effects us. I have stumbled again and again about my place in my family and have not successfully changed how it effects me. I realize the things I miss the most about family are the feelings of being loved, for so many years I felt special having two big brothers. There is no one to blame here, it’s just part of the story.

I feel pretty good in my body, I don’t say that very often! I never got to play a sport as a kid, I realize now why. Nothing was the same after being crushed by that machine. I’ve never really known what feeling good in your body means and it wasn’t until 2010 that I finally understood why. But today, I am here, I am doing my best. I have some blood tests ordered to see if I am malnourished, they are doing some kind of test to check the flow in my groin arteries tomorrow. I am excited for Friday to get my first set of fine point injections for the muscle spasms in my neck and shoulders. A go around to try and address my migraines, crossing my fingers for great results!

We also went over how to read labels on food packages, so you get it! Haha, I have been using the easy sodium rule forever. If the sodium is more than the calories put it back! Pickles or pickled foods and cheeses are both high in salt! I gotta go vegan cheese shopping and check the salt levels in those.

*Excessive emotional stress can kill you! It’s the truth, do what you can to change your stress before you have a heart attack like me!

VOTE!

Post Heart Attack - Part 5

How many friends do you have that are on the other side of a heart attack? I went to the opening reception at the Petaluma Art Center the other night for Clay (&C), I was so over whelmed by my need to touch everything. I have been having this overwhelming feeling about beauty and color lately, I would almost call it a train ride. Walking through the center seeing all the clay sculptures lite me up, I was crying as I walked around the room.

I could have stood in there for hours, I wanted to touch everything, I had this visceral reaction and need to feel the temperature, to touch the texture of the pieces and really was moved being there. I could live in such a space, give me a few walls and two 50 watt amps for my kilns and I wouldn’t need much else to live out my life. I find it sad that it took this long for me to find the thing that fills me, much too late in my life it seems to have such a yearning for anything. I find my self wondering why I survived?

Living alone all these years has not been easy, that is not a surprise to anyone. Nothing is easy these days in the world we have built. Dreams die in the making in a world run this way, dream might one day no longer be in the dictionary. It is so apparent that what we all built is falling down and I feel great sadness about it. I ended up back in the hospital the next night after this, blood pressure too low to operate well and fear about blowing my stint repair kept me at Kaiser for an overnight in the cardiac ward. Of course I was the youngest one there, leave it to me to be that one!

The low pulse stressed my heart out and the EKG showed activity in a new part of my heart, so I had to pass a Stress Test in the morning in order to be released. It did me good to pass that test, somehow a little more sure of my wounded heart.

About this heart

Our hearts rule us all, if you have not learned that yet it’s OK. Our hearts run our world, be kind to your heart and all others around you.

This ones heart does for others without any struggle. I have seen her exposed, I have seen her high and I have seen her low. She is filled with that magical thing sometimes only found in women! Maybe I sound pompous, but these are some of the things that matter most to me. I have this really funny way of solving a moment in my head, even if it is not my moment. Compassionate hearts, what I seek is to understand you and this one does the same.

I have watched her unfold her heart right in front of me, I have felt her encompass those around her simply by listening. So know it is part of her gift, she tells others in her kind steps in the world that she cares deep from within. Ah, this one, to be asked to partake in gifting her love and light. I am part of a gift in this creation, I feel like the tool in which I get to help create the message of gratitude to her from another.

Love does things this way, it reaches out and around light and dark spaces to generate moments that stay with us. Moments that imprint on us the message that we are loved and cared for. This moment creates a circle in which all light and love live! Thank you