Why I am choosing to do it here, I'm not so sure. I think its just because if its out there I can't deny it any more. Can't run. Can't hide. I will be forced to face the truth. Both truths - my version and that as everyone else sees it.
I'm prepared for the comments. And I suspect I know what they are going to say. They are not going to be pointing fingers. They will not tie the same blame to these events as I do. I wish I could see the following for what they probably are - what others tell me they are - ordinary reactions to ordinary situations which ended up with extraordinary results. But I don't. I see each one as a way in which I failed us. Me, my son, and most of all my husband. A place I could have intervened. A time that maybe I could have saved him... or at least bought him more time....
Confession 1: Years before
In our relationship, I was the assertive one. Which is hard to believe if you've met me. But Kurt was about as assertive as a field mouse. When Kurt came home from a routine physical, his blood pressure was higher than anything I'd ever seen. He should already have ben dead. 200 + over 100 +. We are talking big numbers. His doctor - whom I also blame - simply attributed it to the fact that he was overweight. Seriously overweight. Sh didn't look any further. Didn't care that both his father and grandfather had died very young from sudden cardiac incidents. Gave him blood pressure medication, and sent him on his merry way. The numbers came down slightly, but they were never normal. Deep down I knew there was something wrong. I knew it was more than weight causing those numbers. I had heard his heart beat. Felt it beneath my cheek so many times. I knew things were not right. But I didn't advocate for him. Didn't try to get him to advocate for himself. I wanted it to be simple high blood pressure. So I let it be. Ignored that nagging feeling deep down inside. A simple ECG, performed right in the doctor's office, would have saved his life. It would have detected the abnormalities. Would have resulted in a pace maker. Which would have corrected the abnormal rhythm that caused his heart to stop that morning. And he would still be here. At least that's what I have been told... I didn't fight for those tests. Didn't even tell him to fight for those tests. I just let it be. He never had the ECG. Never had a pacemaker. The heart abnormalities were discovered on autopsy. After it was too late.
Confession 2: Months before
Kurt was overweight. You've seen the pictures. You can't deny it. He knew it too. He could stand to lose a few pounds. About a year and a half before he died, he got serious about it. He joined one of those weight loss programs. I promised him I would help. I wanted to help. I bought their cookbook, prepared the appropriate meals, and he was doing well. And then I got pregnant. And tired. And lazy. Suddenly our fat-free low cal meal became a burger, because I didn't want to cook. Our sugar-free became sugar-full because I was craving sweets. I stopped "the program." And he followed suit. And the weight came back on. Then the baby came. And I was even more tired and preoccupied. We never went back to what had been working before. If I had tried a little harder - for him, and for us, there would not have been the stress on his heart. Maybe things would have been different.
3: Days before
The weekend before Kurt died, we were visiting his mom in his hometown. When Kurt travelled he usually forgot to take his blood pressure medication. Always forgot, really. I knew that. The coroner's report made note of extra pills in the bottle. He hadn't taken them all weekend. Probably forgot other times as well. After all, it wasn't life and death... His blood pressure was high. Extra force behind an already weak heart equals certain problems. Fatal ones. I knew he wasn't taking them regularly. I should have been the nag he hated and made sure he was....
Confession 4: Hours before
The day before he died, Kurt was complaining about a headache. Looking back, knowing that he hadn't been taking his medication, it was probably caused by high blood pressure. I didn't take him seriously. I pulled out the tylenol and joked that it was the man who always complained about little things like this... It was no joke...
Confession 5: Minutes after
This one will come out when I tell the story of those six minutes. The guilt I carry about my inability to do anything that day will ring through. Suffice to say I moved too slow. Again, I ignored my gut. I would have moved mountains to right my mistakes of the past, yet I could not even move the man. This is the one thing that I am most sorry for... My biggest regret. My biggest failure. My fault.
Confession 6:
This is more an acknowledgement than a confession, but it still seems appropriate to say it here. My biggest fear was that I would lose Kurt. Always. I would have nightmares about something happening to him, about me being left alone. As the baby inside me grew, the fears got worse. And in those nightmares, it was always his heart. Always a heart attack. I never confided this fear to anyone. Certainly not to Kurt. Deep down, I knew that I would outlive the man I loved. That I would be the one burying him, and not the other way around. But never, in my wildest dream or worst nightmare, did I see it coming so soon....
And there they are. They probably sound silly and trivial to everyone else. But to me it reads like a grocery list of things I could have done but didn't. Each one with the potential to alter the end result... This the the framework which builds the foundation for the future. The blocks on which I try to rebuild. Try to forgive. As I think I've said before, forgiving others is so much easier than forgiving oneself. It was my job to take care of Kurt. I was the one to make it better when something went wrong. And I didn't. I couldn't.
I failed. And I am sorry.....
Now where do I go from here?
Just keep moving. It doesn't matter where, just forward...
ReplyDeleteEveryone has a list of "what if's" and "I should have's".
You are not alone.