Wednesday, May 25, 2011

WHY MY RECENT BLOGS WERE MISSING

I must apologize to my faithful readers for not blogging recently. I had no idea I was missed. Recently emails were sent to me asking if I was okay as they have not read anything new. Others who knew me asked the same question. Curious, I checked with Sitemeter which tells me how many visits went into my website during my absence. I never knew who they were. To my surprise, without sending out announcements of a new blog, I was getting almost the same amount of hits as if I sent out emails. It was very gratifying to me and has inspired me to continue writing.

The truth is, I was quite ill and did not realize it. I was getting a strange feeling in my chest. Although it was not painful, it felt as if I had gas or indigestion. It lasted 2 minutes then went away. However, every evening at about the same time it returned for another two minutes. At the same time my molar teeth were hurting.  My jaw did not bother me, but felt weird. I was having a problem with vertigo, and a painful tooth prior to this. That was why I had been ignoring those symptoms, My arm, shoulder and neck, did not bother me as many books claim those are the symptoms of a heart attack.  With women, however doctors say heart attack symtoms vary and  could be different than men

Anxious to take me to the ER,  I promised my husband if that same feeling came back for more than 5 minutes he could take me.

The following morning I received an aggravating phone call. My chest became tight, whereby I could not barely speak and had to hang up on the caller. My doc said later it was angina

After waiting an hour I felt better. That evening at one in the morning, the symptoms came back only this time it lasted 15 minutes. At that point I became frightened and allowed my husband to take me to the hospital.

My EKG was fine but my pressure was 200 over ? They made me stay for observation and a couple of days later I had angioplasty and two stents in my left artery. The doc said I was very lucky, as  there were no heart or muscle damage.  However I must take loads of pills forever. Diet and exercise will now be my new way of life.

Released from the hospital, I had a couple of days to shop for Passover. Excitedly, my daughter and her family were flying down to Florida to spend the holidays with us. I was thankful to be alive to see my family come together.  I was equally thankful  to have lived for that moment  listening and watching  our 14 year old grandson lead the Seder and our younger grandson and granddaughter "ask the four questions".









1 comment:

Marlene said...

hi iris. haven't gotten your column for a while. hope all okay. i wanted to tell you a story that is absolutely true: my mom and stepdad died within 5 months of eachother in 2002. when it came time
for their joint unveiling i made them a huge beautiful celebration of life luncheon at a swanky spot, invitations and all. i had a cantor at the graveside who sang and offered prayers. i even had live
music at the luncheon. it was quite wonderful. now: about 2 months ago i had an appointment in santa monica that was cancelled and remade for the thursday before passover. after my appointment,
i decided to shop in santa monica and luckily found a street spot. i was approached by a chassid offering me schmura matza and his chassid partner invited me to a seder. after some conversation,
one of the rabbis gave me literature on the santa monica chabad and i noticed his name. i asked him if he knew cantor so-and-so in brooklyn, and with awe and shock he told me it was his grandfather.
after some questionable disbelief, it truly turned out to be his grandfather - the same cantor that i hired for the unveiling, and the same cantor i went to for prayers when my son's father died.


the miracle of "bashert" cannot be explained. if the person who i had the original appointment with didn't cancel and reschedule, none of this might have happened. at least not this way. therefore, i
must once again bless jewish geography and my coined favorite jewish philosophy: never talk in elevators, even in china. regards, marlene