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Illustration by Catherine Chan
My mom has always been an overdoer. Too many snacks out for guests to finish. Too many words on your birthday card. Too many emotions for that one John Cusack movie. Naturally and professionally, working as a night nurse for nearly 35 years, the woman’s purpose on this planet is to care.
She has spoiled not only me, but every living thing within a five-kilometre radius of herself for her entire life.
As an adult, mom’s affection seemed to be too much for me to match. I moved three hours away for work, and with mom’s fear of highway driving, a lot of our communication was boiled down to calls and texts, most of which would get declined and unanswered. My repeated response of “In a meeting,” became a favourite catchphrase of hers.
Mom understood but I knew she had a tough time dealing with it as well. Pretty soon our text threads just became a back and forth of heart emojis, a quick symbol that demonstrated in some way that we were thinking of one another at that precise moment.
Everything changed when I was woken up by sharp chest pains. I wrenched around my bed for a few minutes, contemplating why a 29-year-old who regularly works out and eats well was having what I thought and felt was a heart attack.
I was rushed to the hospital in my small town where I was immediately hooked up to every test they had and drained of blood like it was crude oil. Nurses raced around my room. Doctors stoically checked charts. The beeps of my heart rate monitor machine taunted me, saying: “This … is … It” with every offbeat pulse.
Still clueless as to what was really going on, confusion left the room and fear came tap dancing in.
I kept repeating to myself: “You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.” Then, I finally said it. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and realized: “I want my MOM.”
After a few more tests, I was driven to a larger city where I would be met by a cardiologist for even more tests and, hopefully, answers.
Thankfully I slept through most of the three hour ambulance ride. I awoke to the paramedics wheeling me through the hospital. As they pushed me through the double-wide doors of the cardiology unit, I unfixed my eyes from the speckled ceiling tiles and waiting there with a tear clinging from the side of her cheek – was my mom.
As soon as I saw her, I began feeling better. And I knew it wasn’t the colourful pills I had recently swallowed. She was immediately in half-mom, half-nurse mode and asking about my charts but I just wanted her to sit down beside me and never leave. I wanted to go back in time and respond to all those texts I ignored and stop in for more dinners and call her first instead of her calling me. Because as far back as I can remember, mom meant safety. And – with EKG stickers waxing off my chest hair and two IVs jabbed into my hands – at this point, safety felt like something of a myth.
After checking into the cardiology unit, I was taken to emergency triage and wheeled into a tiny curtained-off room. I could hear everything around me – like the old guy next to me farting or the woman three curtains down screaming for help. There was barely enough room for a bed, but Mom brought in a chair and reassured me that everything was going to be okay.
At this larger hospital, the tests got scarier and the results more dramatic. There were X-rays, ultrasounds and even an angiogram. It became more and more evident that I wasn’t going home any time soon.
The first night I stayed alone – with the farting, yelling and fear – but Mom was there in the morning when I woke up with my favourite magazines and Gatorade. Because when you’re bedridden with chest pains, you need to fuel like you’re about to run hurdles.
Throughout my three days and nights in the hospital, she sat beside me on this emotional roller coaster. The fear of not knowing what was going on. The seriousness of my chest pains. And finally, the triumph of my cardiologist informing me that I had no serious damage or long-term issues with my heart. I’d be okay, after all.
Mom and I walked hand in hand through the hospital and out the doors to my new, changed life. I was finished with nearly dying. Now I’d have to figure out a way to return to living. Even though I’d lost the invincibility I felt so strongly as a young man, I was force-fed a newfound gratefulness for my life, my health and most of all, my mom.
As I was met with my car to take me back home, I looked at her, fighting back tears.
“Call you later,” she said.
Zac Easton lives in Minnedosa, Man.