family

WE HAVE MOVED

| ERA

MOVING IS HARD

After years of searching for an apartment which met our requirements, we just moved to the neighborhood of St. George, on the north shore of Staten Island. That is the side of the Island where a lot of Democrats live and our representatives at the state and city level are all Democrats, with the exception of our congressional representative since that person is elected by the entire Island which is not a very blue community. I only mention this because since Trump was elected the first time, I have felt uncomfortable with the area I lived. The first sign came when I had to leave my parish after 44 years because the new pastor starting speaking like Trump. Also while soliciting donations from the surrounding neighborhoods to help the newly-arrived migrants I was harassed by some who got my flyer in their mailbox.

My neighbors were fine and good people and I in no way include them in this description of harassers but every time I met someone new and ran into someone in church, I thought to myself, this person might have voted for Trump. Voting for him, a second time, is inconceivable to me. The man has proven himself to be a liar, a fraudster, an abuser of women and a felon.

But this story is about moving and the challenges encountered in this adventure.

Our apartment is in this building at 5 Stuyvesant Place on the 7th Floor. It has floor to ceiling windows in every room and we overlook Manhattan. This picture was taken with my back toward the water. I can view the whole of Manhattan, parts of Brooklyn and New Jersey. I can see the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges as well as the Statue of Liberty.

We are a 5-minute walk to the NYC Fast Ferry and 7 minute walk to the Staten Island Ferry. We searched Manhattan for years: the upper West Side, the upper East Side, Battery Park City, the Financial District, Tribeca and the East and West Village. Well it turns out that in all that time, we didn’t find a place that checked all the boxes, and yes, we did have a lot of boxes.

We lived in our house since 1980 so about 44 years. I never thought I was a hoarder and I still don’t believe I am, but in 44 years you can collect a lot of stuff. If you’re my husband you have shopped daily for a number of years and catch sales of meats, canned goods and, lest I forget, toilet paper. We have a lot of toilet paper and no place to store it.

We moved into our new place before we sold our house so we didn’t have to move everything all at once. So now after one month living in our apartment we still have some things at the house. We are still traveling back to the house to pick up a roast or some chicken cutlets: all the items that still remain in my very large freezer. For those who read my stories, you know that my freezer could fit about 6 men standing up. It is very large and luckily we didn’t have to take it with us. We only need to empty it which is turning out to be a challenge. We will probably close on our house at the end of January so we will have to move everything by that time.

The advantage to this scenario is you can unpack boxes and bags a bit at a time. We sold most of our furniture so other than some bookcases my grandfather built and two comfortable chairs, we supported our economy by purchasing new furniture. I warn you it is not so easy to buy furniture anymore. If you choose to buy online, you will need to put it together when it comes. I have learned that there are apps where you can hire someone to do just about everything: even put things together. And who knew that pedestal tables are not good for people with big feet: I did not.

New modern apartments have few closets from the ones that I have viewed in the 10 years searching. I have learned they usually have a huge walk-in closet in the bedroom and maybe one or another depending how big your apartment is. We are in a two bedroom/two bathroom apartment with one large living space that accommodates living/dining and kitchen. I was always turned off by boxy rooms–and as you can see from the photos, I have few straight walls.

At this point most of everything is stored away and most of our furniture has been delivered, and yes, assembled. So I believe we are making progress. Big progress was made when I ran back to the house to get some Christmas decorations and lights. You know I had to hang lights in those big windows.

When we found the apartment and signed the lease for November 1st, we knew we couldn’t move on that date. I was leaving on a transatlantic cruise to Barcelona and wasn’t planning on coming home until mid November. As everything in life, plans changed and I arrived back home on Election Day, something I was trying to avoid at all costs. It was one of the reason I had planned the travel. I left on October 21 and returned on November 5th.

We put the house on the market in mid November and hoped it would sell quickly. As all real estate professionals, ours wanted us to keep the house neat and organized for viewing. They also like you to be out of the house when an appointment to view is made. This process occurs while you are packing boxes and trashing half your life in photos. I would pack some boxes on Monday and drive them over to the Salvation Army on Tuesday to eliminate any boxes in the house for viewings. This went on for one week. I finally decided that moving quickly is easier than slowly. Mike and I set a date–we would move on November 21. We hired the movers, and then for the next 10 days, packed and made decisions about what would fit in the apartment. It was like pulling off a bandaid quickly or so I thought. Pieces of the bandaid still remain at my old house. We still pick up items a few times a week.

To be honest, at this date there are only a few pieces of art, some rare books and some Ball jars left–and of course, some more packages of toilet paper. The books will be gone on January 5; the art is still up in the air, but I will take those Ball jars to the new place.

I was careful to make sure that some spaces in our new home would be similar to our old home. After all we are pretty set in our ways after 44 years in the house. We purchased a 94″ desk for Mike and I to share. In our old place we had a very large desk on our porch with a smaller desk next to it. Mike and I worked there in front of the windows and I knew we needed a similar arrangement. Our two small recliner chairs was the other constant between places. This decision was a good one, it gave us both some stability. I have learned that when you age, you need stability. It keeps you balanced and comfortable.

Another item I found important is you need a “junk” draw because no matter what, you will move junk. Junk you might never use, but most have. But other junk is used consistently but it is hard to sort out comfortable junk from junk you actually use. I have always been comforted by having a seam ripper in a close-by draw–I probably used it 44 times in 44 years, so I probably really didn’t need to move it. Alright this is a minor item but there are larger items that fit the same scenario: you have to have it, but you probably won’t use it. I am a quick learner so I will never make that mistake again.

Another lesson: you must know your limits. You should not pack boxes that you cannot move. Even if you have moving people, you will need to move those boxes at one point. And by the way, boxes are expensive. Staples was charging $12.00 for one box called the bankers box. I learned soon that it was probably worth the $12. It has handles and a cover–no tape required. I bought a variety of boxes and learned quickly that I did not want to deal with large boxes.

I did find that large soft bags were perfect for moving items that your mover was not moving because you hadn’t packed it yet. Imagine a slow cooker fits perfectly in one of these bags. These sturdy bags are worth their weight in gold, easy to pack, easy to carry. One was a reject RR Donnelley bag, if you notice the supplier left off the “y” and the other was a gift from a Morgan Stanley event I attended. I will never throw these away.

Meredith and Nelson moved from Seattle in July. They packed everything in a pod and shipped it across the country and then they drove here. At that time we did not know we were moving. For some reason Nelson saved bubble wrap and tissue paper from their move. I am unsure why, but will be forever grateful. You need a lot of bubble wrap and the rolls they sell would never be enough. I carry it in these bags back and forth, back and forth. They also lent me a dolly–also a God-sent item.

Since we officially moved with the movers on November 21, we drive to the old house, pack these soft bags and a box or two and bring them to the apartment. I unpack and find a spot for everything we move on the same day. It was a promise I made to myself: unpack daily. We have a spot in a garage under the building and an elevator from there to our place. I am sure my neighbors who have seen our routine of moving everything from the car to the elevator and then taking it up and moving out of the elevator and then to our front door think we are crazy. I do not believe that there are many people in this building who have spent 44 years in once place.

Christmas has come and gone, as well as New Year’s Day, but I continue to have a few items at the old place. Fortunately my closing will take place shortly and I will be forced to have everything out.

We have cooked and had company for dinner. It was difficult for me to find my place in the kitchen but Mike found his place sooner. We did eat frozen Smart Weight Watcher meals for a while. I had a Wolf stove that I loved but this is an all electric apartment [as it should be]. I burned pancakes the first time I made them and became shy about cooking. Mike quickly adjusted to the in house washer/dryer [thank goodness for little things or big ones I guess]. We both had challenges with the refrigerator, or really the freezer. It makes ice–lots of ice–and continues to make more ice. We could not figure out how to stop the ice making. We like ice, we drink, but we had more ice than we could possibly use. After a week, we succeeded on the ice making front. This is a new building and no one has ever lived in this apartment. [It was one of my check boxes: new not old.] So no one living here actually knows anything about the appliances. I have now downloaded manuals for washer/dryer, refrigerator and stove and saved for reference and I will gladly give advice to others if needed.

I found that a canned goods and clothing could be co-inhabitors of the same space and that walk in closets are actually enormous. I have never lived in a new house, let alone had a closet you could walk into.

I am sure you noticed the toilet paper on the top shelf. That is only a portion of it.

We had 20 pounds of pasta and at least 10 cans of tomatoes. This is what you do in a house–not so in an apartment. I am OK with this co-existence of clothes meeting canned goods

The one bit of advice I would give about moving: you need to take things you love. Never leave them. You will always find a spot for some knick knack that you have loved for many years. My elephants are to that point. Having so many windows that are floor to ceiling, I didn’t know where I could put plants, knick knacks, the dried bullrushes I have so loved from my garden, the ball jars that have solar lights and reflect the sea glass that a good friend collected and passed on to me–and many others. But I found the large sills on the bottom of the window do fine for these items.

During this move I have needed a chiropractor and an acupuncturist. I am still going to the chiropractor and will always go to my acupuncturist. She is a gem.

Besides physical care because moving is hard and we made the boxes too heavy, you need a good mental outlook. Everyone said I might really miss my house. After all it took me 10 years to find a place. I was a gardener of flowers and veggies, I had an in-ground pool which I loved and an old house that sheltered us in good times and bad. Meredith was 3 when we moved there and I remember thinking I would need a staircase gate. We were coming from a house with no stairs to a house with many stairs and her bedroom was top of the stairs.

We entertained so many people and have wonderful memories from there and we will have wonderful memories here–I am sure of that.

I don’t miss my house. Change, for me, has always been a good thing. This is a big change so it is with big love that I will entertain in this place I now call home.

Fixing this and breaking that

| ERA

Today is April 22, 2024 and I am in the Staten Island University Hospital Emergency Room. I have been here since yesterday. This story below was written before today and was meant to update you to some challenges with the TAVR procedure. But yesterday I believed I was having a heart attack and so Mike delivered me to the Emergency room.

But let’s go back a few weeks to about two weeks after the Fitful Heart story.

So as I recover from my recent TAVR procedure, I have not gotten back to feeling like my “old self.” So what did my old self feel like: a lot better than the new self.

I went into the TAVR procedure knowing it would take care of my aortic stenosis. The new bovine valve would make blood flow through my heart more freely–it gave it more elasticity to go through. I also knew that it would have no effect on my Afib–or so I thought. The Afib has always been the annoying factor of this two-tiered heart problem. I never had any symptoms of stenosis. As I mentioned in the previous stories, I had been asked numerous times whether I was out of breathe while exercising or when I did stairs. I never had any symptoms of the stenosis. I always felt good while exercising. Swimming, walking or cardio has never been a challenge. I am most comfortable when in that mode.

Now, all of that has changed. My new self has a hard time exercising, resting or sleeping. The Afib has taken over my new self. My afib was usually 2% or less and I hated it at that rate. I felt it every time it happened. Once I got an Apple Watch I was able to track it better and affirm that when I felt it coming–it was coming. My heart rate fluctuates between 45 and 135 on an average. It can be 45 once minute and 135 the next and then down to 70 and then up again to 90. The variation feels disconcerting.

Since the TAVR procedure on February 21 my Afib has gotten worse each week. The numbers now indicate I am in Afib over 90% of the time. It is exhausting. So as my blood flows more freely through my new heart valve, my Afib feels free to exert itself more vehemently. I have no other way to think of this.

The one difference is that since the valve allows more blood through, I feel the Afib less. The variation is there for sure, but what I feel is different.

It definitely is exhausting but it feels different. This is difficult to explain and as I write I try to force my body to explain it to my brain. When the Afib was at 2%, as it came on, I shivered with the anticipation. Usually it subsided in 20 minutes or an hour, but from experience I understood it would go away. Being a little nerdy, I actually wrote down every time I felt the afib and then after a month I calculated whether my Apple watch caught everything I was feeling. It was affirmation and sometimes you need affirmation. When in afib I would get up and walk around or do some deep breathing or just distract myself from what I was feeling. Now it is always there and as the time has passed since the TAVR my Afib gets worst and I feel awful. I now feel lightheaded and at times dizzy.

Exercising or walking is a challenge. I run out of breathe. I swam 2 or 3 times but couldn’t make the mile….just got tired. Now it is impossible to do any of these things. My life has dramatically changed from being active to sitting around doing very little. [You might have thought I had more time to finish up this story, but there is an aspect of depression that dwells with me.]

After the TAVR I was on a heart monitor for a month. After that time, they schedule an appointment with an electrocardiologist and they share the results. I knew what the results would be since I am aware of being in Afib. The monitor showed the same as my Apple watch–I was experiencing this phenomenon 40% of the time. This has always been weird to me—the further I got away from the TAVR the more the Afib persisted and grew. The electrocardiologist mentioned that sometimes after a procedure such as TAVR, the workings of the tubes through your arteries disturbs the electrical current of your heart. Right now I am sounding like I know a whole lot about this. Believe me I would rather not have this and so not know this. So this was a possibility and now the offer of the other doctor to do open heart surgery instead of a TAVR and fix both the stenosis and the afib makes more sense. I still believe I would have said no to the open heart surgery. It is really invasive.

So the next step is to schedule an ablation. This procedure would have an 85% chance of keeping the afib at bay. This is the definition of ablation: a medical procedure that removes or destroys a body part, tissue, or its function. It can be performed using drugs, hormones, radiofrequency, heat, surgery, or other methods. 

At first read, my brain went to “removes or destroys a body part, tissue, or its function.” That is terrifying. Was it going to kill the function of my heart? But, luckily, I had an ablation before….my eye doctor ablated the gel tissue around my eye, so I knew it could not be referring to eliminating the function of my heart, but just destroying the tissue that is causing the electrical interference to the beat of my heart.

Now my brain moves to the question of exactly what love is held in that soon to be ablated heart tissue. After all, look at all the music created about your heart and love. I have given my intellect permission to move away from the poetic and think only medically. Yes, my intellect and emotion are interconnected and provide me some great outlooks into life and love.

So I have scheduled the ablation for May 8, the day after my 76th birthday. I need this to be fixed; it is disrupting my life. All pre-op and other appointments have been made. I have been told it is simpler than the TAVR, less invasive, no artery entrance so no need to kneel on my groin to stop the bleeding. I was very relieved to hear that.

APRIL 22

Well as I mentioned, the lightheadedness, dizziness and exhaustion led me to the emergency room yesterday. I was supposed to be cooking pot roast but when I could not breathe and my blood pressure was 153 over 117 I caved to the idea of going to the emergency room. I think that everyone hesitates before going to the ER–might be that you question your symptoms or you think what you are feeling will pass–but I never think anyone does it lightly. I don’t believe I ever gasped for air before and I hope I never will again. I have a new appreciation for those with asthma or panic attacks.

Two of my cardiologists were in the hospital yesterday–on a Sunday–who knew they work on Sundays without an emergency. One of the doctors was my TAVR surgeon. He said that my main cardiologist mentioned I might be mad at him–after all before TAVR I felt whole and well. Now I don’t. I am absolutely not mad at him. He fixed my stenosis; my blood flows well through my heart and I have no blockages. Maybe I would have liked to know that the afib might get worse but I can’t find any stats that confirm that is common or expected.

So today, in a little while, my cardiologist will perform a cardioversion. It is a medical procedure that uses quick, low-energy shocks to restore a regular heart rhythm. I write this but don’t dwell on it. As I spoke with both doctors, there was agreement that I was suffering more from Atrial Flutter than Atrial Fibrillation. They are similar and when I was originally diagnosed I was told I experienced both. But when I think about the afib feeling different before and after the TAVR, this might explain it. I am now feeling flutter. The difference for me is that the feeling is almost constant–your heart doesn’t keep a sinus rhythm and just flutters–it is exhausting.

A funny aside: as I am sitting here writing this, one of the ER resident doctors comes by and as they always do, ask a few questions. His question “have I ever been diagnosed with sleep apnea. I say “no”; he asks whether I snore, I say “no.” He then indicates that my hemoglobin was a little high and that might indicate sleep apnea which might cause afib or flutter. I mention this as a “funny aside” because I will do absolutely nothing with this information. The doc is probably accurate with his statements, but I definitely don’t think it has to do with me. After all, I have a shitload of data that indicates my flutter and afib got out of control after the TAVR procedure. I will file his information for a later date.

So I am currently listening to MSNBC provide the jury instructions given in the Trump trial. After all this is actually a historic day: a former president goes on trial for a number of felonies . . . and I will have a cardioversion. I guess it is more memorable than the day of the TAVR: International Sticky Bun Day.

APRIL 23

Julienne and Suzanne were the caregivers and technicians for the cardioversion. Suzanne had just come back from Rome and had booked through Costco online and said it worked really well. Julienne was headed to Napa for her birthday. We spoke a bit about good wineries to visit and whether a stopover in Sausalito might be fun. As we were waiting for the procedure to begin I had told them about the lateness of my TAVR because of the anesthesiologist from Brooklyn getting stuck in traffic. Not 2 minutes later, who shows up but the guy from Brooklyn. We all laughed, though the Brooklyn anesthesiologist thought it was a little bit creepy that I remembered he was late.

What is not fun: Cardioversions. Think about all those TV shows when they shock someone back to life. That’s what it is like. The humane information: you are totally unconscious of what is going on. The procedure takes maybe 15 minutes or so. They put pads on your chest and back for protection. Then they put a camera down your throat to check for blood clots around your heart; if none are found they then shock your heart. When they remove the anesthetic drip, you are immediately awake. As I opened my eyes and said hello to all the caregivers, they gave me the bad news: it did not work. I had read and knew that this procedure was, I’ll call it, “iffy.” But the possibility of this working enticed me to try it and my cardiologist thought it might work. The next decision was for a slow drip of a medication that might help get my heart back to sinus rhythm.

The rest of the day was uneventful. I watched the monitors, saw my heart go in and out of sinus rhythm and then back into flutter. I hoped I could get home and keep my appointment for the cardiologist that would do the ablation. That did not happen and as of now, I am in a cardiac unit, still getting a slow drip of this medication.

A cardiac doc came by this morning; he mentioned the possibility of doing another cardioversion this afternoon. I told him that was not going to happen. It looked like he understood. Was it the tubes, or black and blue arms, the pain in my chest from the first zap or just the look of horror on my face. I am currently waiting for more information.

An aside: nutritionist came in and asked what I wanted for breakfast. When I mentioned orange juice she said I couldn’t have it because of my diabetes. I informed her that I was not a diabetic. She insisted I was and that it was listed in the tablet. When the nurse indicated I definitely was not diabetic, the nutritionist told me she had no way to override the tablet from calculating that the juice would bring me over my sugar intake for the meal. So watch out the technology will cure you or keep you from getting your juice.

I have just been notified that I will be discharged shortly–not fixed, just discharged. I’m OK with that. I now can look forward to the ablation and getting better. Fingers crossed.

More to come … telling the story is keeping me sane.