In an instant our lives can change. Life never goes as you think it might even when you think things are getting better. But sometimes it isn’t one thing that causes a dramatic change. We think like that, don’t we, that the “other shoe will drop”, a wrench will be thrown into the works”, or “a curve in the road” we didn’t see will appear.

My life seemed “suddenly” like that this year but in reality, the last three years of work built up to it in ways I could not foresee. They say stress is a killer and that isn’t far from the truth of what happened from January until April of 2015. It began with system changes at work and ended (I had no idea) with a simple dental visit in the Fall of 2014.

I rarely get sick, am always on time and dependable and counted on to do my job…to a fault…as they say. I wasn’t the only one that thought that way either. But I picked up a virus in January and the next four months are surreal at best.

I missed a week of work and felt well enough to go back in February. I struggled through the next six weeks, all the time thinking I would begin to feel better. In reality I was much sicker than I was when I had the virus.

The morning my life made that dramatic change and took the curve in the road I never saw, I felt good…or so I thought. I took my dog out and brought her back in to feed her and in the next minutes (after my knees buckled), I found myself on the dining room floor. I knew I had fallen due to a stroke. My daughter came and she and my partner took me to the ER.

They ran tests all day and into the night. It was determined a bacteria (I found out later that came from my mouth) had gone to my mitral valve and taken up residence. Nothing you want in your heart. Reminds me of ‘squatters’ who move into a house that isn’t theirs’ and refuse to leave.

I was put on IV antibiotics through a PICC line to my heart. I was told that in six weeks I would hopefully be cured. Hopefully!!! That is the operative word here. After a week in the hospital I went home to begin the daily ritual which, I too was hopeful of, would evict my unwanted trespassers. But in my fifth week that would all change.

I went into cardiac arrest late at night and my partner called for an ambulance. I was frantic at my inability to breathe. I only remember grabbing the fireman’s arm and pleading for help. They put on oxygen and after putting me into the ambulance the world disappeared behind my closed eyes. What happened between then and when I woke up in the hospital the next day simply isn’t there as I have no memory of it.

I was told they did emergency surgery to remove my mitral valve the bacteria had been dining on, causing it to not function. When I saw my cardiologist recently he said the valve had simply burst causing my heart attack. My lungs had filled with fluid and my heart could no longer sustain me. I came very close to dying if it were not for the quick actions of those involved. I listened to what they said but could not fathom it was me they were talking about. I kept looking at the long line of stitches on my chest if trying to verify it was true. My children and everyone I knew could not believe the chain of events as they all thought of me as being strong and therefore how could it have happened?!?!

They said it was because my immune system was compromised and run down and had allowed the bacteria in. When I thought of all I had been through the last three years I knew it to be true.

I am now recovering, forced to retire, to take stock in my life and make changes sooner than expected. My life, (or anyone’s for that matter), changed of a Spring morning when I felt things were getting better. Stress can kill and I came close. Those of you who are under too much stress might want to stop and take stock of what your life could be like it if were gone.