Aurora's Blog

It’s Wednesday night, so this series continues.

Picking up from last week – I didn’t tell my dad that doctors were going into my heart again.

Oh goodness. How do I tell this part of the story without sounding selfish or spoiled or any bad adjectives? Well, I don’t know. Maybe I will sound like those things… I was hard to deal with when I was in the hospital.

My parents seemed to be overly nervous about the whole thing, so it was easier to keep them in the dark as much as possible – although, it was also hard to do that.

My dad and I have a tendency to talk every day – which becomes harder when you’re in the hospital with beeping machines everywhere, yet you don’t want your dad to know that you are in said hospital.

Obviously, I love my dad so much. But, some parents feel a need to protect their kids just a little too much. Last time he dropped everything and came out to Boston – for nothing. I didn’t want him to feel pressured to miss work again. And I certainly didn’t want him sending anyone in his place.

You should meet my grandma – she’s a big ball of worry. I love her to pieces, but she is the worst person to have around you if you want to zen out. “Boston is dangerous. Working in entertainment is dangerous. Illness is dangerous. Everything is dangerous.”

My dad was not happy when he found out I was back in the hospital and neglected to let him know. But, I think he maybe got over it…

He didn’t have enough time to get up to Massachusetts once he did find out. No need to freak out, I’m obviously totally fine (as I knew I would be). Everything worked out for everybody, is how I like to think about it. (I like to talk about it nonchalantly, because I don’t want to allow myself to think that I actually hurt my dad’s feelings.)

How exactly did my dad find out, you ask? Well, I had to have some kind of proxy person on the off-chance something went wrong. I called one of my great friends whom I’ve known since childhood, and asked if he’d be my person. He said yes.

Then instead of just being my person, he called my dad and narked on me! (He’s like a son to my dad, so I understand his allegiance. But still!)

I had the test/ablation on Friday, November 6. And I was let out of the hospital on, I’m pretty sure, the 11th. I think the extra days were because the doctors started me on a medicine, and wanted to give my heart another test on the 10th to see how it was reacting to said medicine.

I think I had a number of tests that week. I don’t remember which tests I had, or when they all took place, but I definitely remember running on treadmills at Mass Gen, and just generally having my heart looked at from every which way at some point, in some week. The doctors were gonna be sure not to miss a thing.

Speaking of tests – I think it was during this hospital stint that it happened.

So, they put me on beta-blockers. After a few days of the nurses coming and watching me as I took my medicine (since we all know how much I hate medicine), a doctor put me on a treadmill. And I pushed.

The doctor said we could stop, but I would not have it! I could definitely run faster than the piddly speed at which they had me. Suddenly, I was sitting on the treadmill, and someone was helping me up. Apparently I had a pre-syncopal episode.

I have no recollection of the treadmill stopping or my falling over. I just remember the lesson that if I took my medicine, I absolutely could not jog the way I used to. My body would abort the mission if my heart got to a certain (not very high) speed. I think the doctors knew that I never would’ve trusted that on faith alone, so they showed me. Touché, doctors.

I’ll elaborate about the big pain in the butt I was to my friends and family, while I was in the hospital, next week.