Chapter Eleven: Fighting to Stay Alive

CHAPTER ELEVEN: Fighting to Stay Alive

Illness on the mountain was the one great fear that entered my mind on numerous occasions. The following few months would bring this to reality. The tightness in my chest now became an everyday occurrence, and sometimes it happened while I was sitting. Going downtown to do anything left me exhausted and had to rest for the balance of the day. I was able to carry in firewood but one piece at a time as to gather more than a couple of pieces was just too strenuous. The spring arrived in a gentle manner this year with little flooding and road washout. When the ice and snow melted we could drive the suburban up the hill. This made travel somewhat easier. But I did enjoy the three-wheeler every day. It was easy to drive, and start, and proved to be a reliable little ATV.

Seeking solitude and seeking friendship went hand in hand these days. I tried to help out my friend with his building and help him cut and haul a few trees out of the bush. Most of the time my energy level was just a push or hook a rope on to a log then drive the ATV. Many times I would run the dogs in the evening with the ATV. It was good exercise for them and it was a kind of solitude as well. I knew that I was sick and I cried many times in the forest. My health was gone now and no more working my way out of difficult situations. To have a heart operation was just out of the question. I denied that I was unfit.

I could not accept this burden well. I was lying down one afternoon in the front room in deep depression wondering about this God part of my life. I was in a trance like state with my eyes fixed on the clear blue sky.

The leaves were just baby buds at this time.

I felt forsaken by whatever my God was at that time, and despair was close many times. But God somehow always came through and this time it was just a drop of water that caught a ray of sunlight. My depression was disturbed by such a ray of the colors of the rainbow that snapped into my eyes that I just knew that somehow things would work out for Margie and me. Never was there a depression that was not answered from my surroundings. And in a way that books, words or the voice of another could never answer. The answers came from what I know now as the Ever-Present and my connection to it. Many futile attempts to fabricate a God suitable for me were now changing again. I was getting answers from god but not the God that I had learned about. It was somehow different now. God was not what I wanted, at least not the one that I thought existed somewhere.

I need to know more, I said to myself so many times. I want to know about this God thing. Where in the hell is that tender ever loving God that we all read about; just where is He.

Spring flowed into summer and as I was sitting in my rocking chair one

day something happened to me. It was like my arms became weak and they ached. The veins seemed to be getting solidified was the description I gave it. It was not painful but a very uncomfortable condition. This had happened one time before but for a short time. This time it was lasting for about ten minutes. It was something that frightened me because it was a different feeling. I was under no physical strain while just sitting down. The feeling left me after a while and I thought it was something that was a coincidence. I rested as much as I could that day but in the afternoon this strange gripping feeling in my arms and shoulders returned again. I called Margie and she said that we were going to the emergency room at the Bancroft Hospital. I was able to get into the suburban and Margie drove me to the hospital. After a short wait I was brought into the emergency room and hooked up to monitors but the strange pain had left by then.

My family doctor was called and he came in and made a very quick evaluation. He stated that I was suffering from a pinched nerve. This made me feel somewhat better. However the nurse consulted with Margie and the consensus was that it was more than a nerve pinched.

With my history of a heart condition and being on a high amount of daily medication Margie went to the doctor’s office and demanded that I be thoroughly checked in the Belleville Hospital. During this time with Margie across the street seeing my family doctor it happened again.

This time it was much worse, but I was hooked up to a heart monitor and I was in the intensive care unit of the Bancroft Hospital. I called out to the nurse that it was happening again. I could barely see the monitor when I looked up behind me but the line was flickering some kind of a display that I am sure was not normal. HELP I cried HELP. HELP. I saw the big red emergency button on the wall across the room. If I were closer I would have hit the button with my foot. I called out again and again but nothing. No nurse, no Margie, no doctor, no help and obviously no God. Here I was in the intensive care unit suffering a heart attack and all alone.

As I glanced at the monitor the line was giving a display that would have been new to medical science. I relaxed now and consented to die all alone in the emergency room. I cried a little and many thoughts went through my mind. I looked at the monitor again and it was on a seeming normal pattern as much as I knew. The pain had now left me and I was not flat lined or dead, I was living. Soon the slippery pat, pat of the nurse’s soft shoes and Margie’s sneakers were heard coming down the hall.

They entered the emergency room and smiled to me the good news. I was to go the Kingston General Hospital in two weeks to visit the heart surgeon. The doctor came in after his office hours and told me, like he hadn’t even said, “All you’ve got is a pinched nerve, you’re going to have open heart surgery in three weeks.” I, at this time, was indeed a

happy man as I was getting these death notices quite regularly now. Oh God, I thought, will I tell them what had happened in the emergency room while they were consulting with the doctor across the street?

The visit to Kingston was just the beginning of many more hospital visits during the next two months. My history file was getting bigger with all the many tests and angiograms. My heart surgeon was waiting for me when I went in. He told me the main concerns about open-heart surgery and the risks involved. I had made up my mind to get this done and over with.