It’s quarter of one on Thursday night. I think that this headache actually woke me up. I am afraid that I am having a stroke.
My mom died of a stroke. I have told you that already. Ad infinitum. I know. She and my dad were at a wedding rehersal. They were the host and hostess for the reception and had been invited to the rehersal. It was Joel Yunek’s first wedding to Kris Karstens. 1977. I was just visiting Deb and Jay in March of this year and Deb was remembering that my mom spent the evening of the rehersal complaining about a headache. She came home and it got quite bad and she started vomiting. She told my dad that she thought she was having a stroke. Appropriately, he thought she was drunk and told her to come to bed. She kept vomiting. He drove her to the hospital and she threw up in the car which, according to my dad, really upset her.
I am sure she wasn’t exactly rational at that moment.
My dad says the last thing she said to him was “take care of the kids”. Then she arrested in the ER. Charlie Comstock did not know what was going on so he revived her with those shock paddles.
“Clear”.
And her heart started beating again. But she was gone.
This is my secret nightmare that keeps me up at night sometimes. I haven’t worried about it for a long long time. I passed the age she had the stroke (33). And the age she eventually died when my dad stopped intubating her (34). I don’t smoke. I don’t drink too much (my mom loved her Tarrington 100′s). I exercise (she did not exercise, she just ate little and poorly and sat in the sun a lot, smoking cigarrettes and probably drinking. I am not sure what she liked to drink, but I think it was canned beer.).
But tonight, I am sitting in my kitchen, convinced that this is the last train from Terrapin Station. My head hurts so much that my entire skull is throbbing and it is coming right down between my eyes on the bridge of my nose. I am remembering earlier tonight when i was sitting on my knees in the kitchen and got up and nearly passed out. I thought it was the bad food from the collective. Now I am convinced that it was a blood clot in my leg that has now passed to my brain. I am actually breaking out in a sweat from the pain. This is unusual. I probably get 3 headaches a year (that don’t relate to caffiene or hangovers).
If I am dead in the morning. Please tell my children that I lived for them. I loved them more than my life and it is they who I am obsessively thinking about right now. Please help them when they are sad, and confused and depressed and taking their life in their own hands because they have lost themselves. Please hug them a lot like they were your own children.
Please help my husband. He doesn’t know how to balance the checkbook. He proably will need to be on prozac. He will drink too much. He can get to controlling about the small stuff. Remind him to be gentle with himself and with the kids. Remind him gently to make the kids his top priority. Remind him to stay away from insecure catholic girls with no children at all costs.
Don’t let him get married until the children are in college. His children will be healthier for it. Please trust me on this Brian. I love you bubs.
Encourage him to go to therapy. I recommend Helen Kim or Pam Weiner.
I am going to go upstairs and read my book for a while.
