Tag Archives: Driving

Weirdly Wired and Jumping

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When your sixteen year old daughter gets her driver’s license, a few jitters and nerves are somewhat expected.  After all, we are giving the green light to our beloved little girl operating a vehicle on the road WITHOUT US there to help her watch out for the complete lunatics who drive as if they own the road and make up their own rules doing so…and they don’t care a jot about the precious one that we’ve nurtured and protected for the past sixteen years.   So after she passed the driving test with flying colors, it was my duty to bring her down to earth.

“We’re taking this slow,” I told her using my firm mommy voice, “You’re limited to school and back this next week and then we’ll start slowly stretching out.”

She was disappointed that I wouldn’t let her drive herself and her two friends to the football game less than a mile from home but my mind spun when I considered how rowdy football game fans can be both before and especially after a game.  I wasn’t ready for her to solo at night with friends in that kind of crazy teenage traffic. 

Her friends were staying over after the game so after a pit stop at the grocery store for some all-night goodies, we headed home and I realized I was incredibly tired.  Odd for me because it wasn’t even ten and I’m a night owl.  I got ready for bed, too tired to even shower, and kissed them all goodnight because each of them are my special girls. 

Morgen, my 5 month old kitty, and I have a special game we play every night at bedtime and though he got into position to pounce on my hand as I moved it under the comforter, I was just too tired to play for long.  I settled in and almost felt asleep but suddenly felt something very wrong.  It was as if I were fading and the not the good kind where you fade into sleep but the kind that made me wonder if I were dying.  I felt my pulse and instead of a steady beat I felt a beat, a long pause, a couple of beats, a long pause, a beat, a very long pause, three fast beats, a long pause, and then a steady drumming followed by beats with long pauses.  Knowing that wasn’t right, I located my wonderful little Omron BP machine that measures BP and pulse, and alerts to irregular heartbeats.  I forced myself to sit still for a full five minutes before taking the first reading and it showed 158/87 for BP, 47 for pulse and the little heart thing was vibrating like mad to tell me I had an irregular heartbeat. 

Hmmm. 

Not wanting to panic, I made myself wait and took it again.  On the third reading with the little heart symbol wigging out the entire time I called for Hannah and told her to get me a couple of aspirin (I have no idea why), and I took them.  Several more readings and the stupid little heart thing was almost bouncing off the machine so I called for Hannah and told her I was calling 911. 

When you call the fire department/paramedics, you just never know what you’re going to get.  One of the three who came into the house asked what was wrong and after I calmly told them he said, “So you called us to make sure your machine was calibrated?”

Hmmm.  That wasn’t nice. 

“Run a 12 channel strip,” I said.  Amazingly, and maybe because the tone of my voice indicated I’m used to calling for those types of orders and having them followed, he did.

By the time the first part of the EKG strip was printing out he was backtracking and telling me I was definitely  having irregular heartbeats and needed to go to the hospital immediately.  And by that time I would have had to be unconscious to go with his crew in a bus to the hospital.  I looked at Hannah and asked if she could drive me.  She nodded confidently and said she could.

We dismissed the nice firemen and headed to the hospital with Hannah’s special girlfriends along for moral support.   

During the next twenty hours my heart continued its dance, hop, skip and jump on the wild side.  A Fib, PACs, PVCs, V-tach, V-tach with bigeminy, and repeat, again, and again, and again.  The alarms sounded steadily until they moved me to a room without the monitor but with a portable unit that sent signals to some private area where “someone” was always monitoring.  But I felt it anyway.  I didn’t need a monitor sounding its alarm to tell me my rhythm was seriously off.   And I knew enough about that to know it meant my heart’s electrical pathway, or wiring, was weird.

Sometime around 1:30 or 2:30  in the morning Hannah’s friend who had an event at 7 a.m. the next day needed to go home.  Hannah asked if she could drive her and I was in no condition to protest so off they went, three girls, and two returned.  Sometime around 4 or 5:30 in the morning Hannah took her other friend and they went home to let our dog out and then on to her friend’s house to sleep.  Sometime around 8 in the morning Hannah came back to our house to let the dog out again, feed the kitties, and sleep some more.  And on it went.  Hannah driving back and forth from home to the hospital, stopping at Circle K for a soda, going through McDonald’s for something to eat, stopping at Safeway to get me some gummy bears.  On Saturday she took care of the cats and dog and then came back to the hospital to spend the night with me.  On Sunday morning she drove home to get dressed, went to church to teach Sunday school, then came to the hospital to get me to go home, then back to church and later back home to sleep. 

Around 5:30 I realized I had to get the prescription filled to take the heart medication they had prescribed and because I was feeling as if I were moving through mud I asked Hannah to drive us.  As I watched her confidence in backing out of the driveway and then turning from our street left into traffic, I asked her how she felt about driving.

“It’s really weird, mom.  It’s like I got on a plane to go to Hawaii because that’s something you really look forward to doing someday like getting your license, and halfway over the ocean they opened the doors and said ‘okay, now jump!'”  

“My poor girl, we were going to take it slow, weren’t we?”

She grinned, “So much for that.”

“So, how do you feel about driving?” I persisted.

“I’m comfortable driving.  I’m cautious and I watch everything.  I’ve had a lot of responsibility these last few days, but I think I’ve done well.” 

And she had.  She had jumped suddenly from being excited about being allowed to drive to school and back to being the one who had to drive for reasons beyond her control or mine.  There was no time for second thoughts or hesitation – it had to be done and she did it. 

As we started errands tonight I asked her if she wanted to drive. 

“No, I’ve been driving so much I’m kind of over it.  You can drive, mom.”

How proud I am of her.  How thankful I am for her.  How I’ve prayed for her safety.  And God has answered those prayers with every text message.

“Leaving, love you.”

“Home, love you.”

One more milestone of growing up and she didn’t just pass, she jumped.  And God provided the parachute just in time for her safe landing.    

PDPHD…this one is for you.  You continue to be more than I ever imagined.

Who’s Talking Now?

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“Do you think they have them there?”  I asked my daughter as we pulled out of the driveway, going to find a little sock like thingy that attachs to the key ring and holds the car remote with the broken plastic piece that allows you to normally attach it to the key ring.

Hannah, texting while answering me, “I don’t know everything in their inventory.  We’ll have to see.”

“Ah,” I said, “but we expect you to know these things as you are the only one of us who has been there.”

She put down her phone and stared at me suspiciously, “And who is this “we” who expects me to know this?”

“Just me, myself and I,” I countered, thrilled to have that comeback.

She smiled and picked back up her phone that had buzzed.  “That would be the trio that has the crazy conversations.”

She knows me too well.  I am notorious for talking to myself, arguing with myself, questioning myself, answering myself, and maintaining a running conversation with just me, myself and I.  When I drive, I constantly talk to cars and streetlights.  I talk to the computer when it doesn’t do what I want it to do or when I’m trying to figure out what to do when I hit something I shouldn’t and the screen does its own thing.  I talk to the cats, but they listen and sometimes meow back.       

When my office was a cubicle in a large room with others, my poor coworkers were constantly saying “What?” or “Are you talking to me or you?”  When one was moved to another area he told me he had picked up my habit and now others were always asking him those questions.  When I told him I was sorry to have passed that on, he said, “Actually, I’m not, because it’s helped me sometimes.”

I think, seriously, that I am ADD and self-talk helps me focus on what I need to do, my thought process, my action plan one step at a time.  If I don’t talk myself through my tasks, I get lost as my mind flits, runs, flirts and wrestles with dozens of unrelated and irrelevant  thoughts and I find myself off task, off track, out of focus and floundering to get back to whatever it was I was supposed to be doing, or thinking.   I seem to only be focused when I am writing or talking – only at those times do the flighty trio of me, myself and I somewhat collaborate and stay, if not on the same line, at least on the same page.  

I have had people tell me this should make me a quick comeback person, but that is so not true for me.  I rarely, as in never,  have quick comebacks.  I’m the person who thinks of the comeback at 4 in the morning three weeks later.  And by then it is so good that I could kick myself for not having it when it could have been useful!  I wonder if talking to myself so much makes it difficult for me to respond in a timely manner to others?  I seem to fail miserably at sparkly social interaction outside my very own trio.  Someone gave me a magnet one time that said, “I live in my own little world, but it’s okay – they know me there.”  I can identify with that one. 

I also talk aloud to the Lord – Jesus Christ – and I know with all my heart He listens. 

I don’t buy into the positive self-talk stuff but I do buy into what God says about who we are and His promises.  When I googled talking to oneself aloud, however, this little tidbit came up.  “When you talk out loud to yourself you cause yourself to focus intently on the challenge, situation, or circumstance. This activity increases the likelihood of obtaining a desirable solution more quickly. It is easy to daydream nonproductively for an hour or two, but it only wastes time and doesn’t give you the results you’d like to have. It is incredibly powerful hearing your own voice emotionally proclaiming what you intend and expect to accomplish. Talking out loud to yourself can go a long way in helping you to move on.”
— Bill Wayne (from The Power of Talking Out Loud to Yourself)

 I actually like that because to me it makes sense. 

As Hannah, who is a student driver, was driving the other day a car seemed as if it were going to pull out in front of her. 

“No, car, don’t you do that!” she said and then glanced at me, grinning.  “Don’t say anything.” 

I couldn’t because I was laughing. 

When we came to the stoplight she looked over at me and laughed.  “Oh my gosh, I’m going to be just like you, aren’t I?  I’m already talking to cars and I don’t even have my license.”

 And the trio approves.