When your dad says I’M SCARED, it’s as if your world is flipped turned upside down (and not in a funny Fresh Prince of Bel Air sort of way either). Parents aren’t allowed to get scared. And don’t even get me started on what happens when your dad CRIES. That’s like end of the world shit right there. And so he went in for his cath and all was okay…until Doctor Eisenberg (no relation to Jesse. I asked. Also, he was wearing scrubs and not a hoodie) said that your dad has an aortic bulb that was way too big and he was going to need open-heart surgery to try to fix this verysoon because hello, ticking time bomb that could burst at any time. Oh. My. Well, that’s fun news to hear while you are sitting in the waiting room playing angry birds and watching your #blissdomcanada column on tweetdeck. So, we were balls of total wreckedness. BUT THEN. He woke up. And after his first words, ps, “I’m alive,” Dr. Eisenberg came back and said that the bulb has been ballooned for the past eight years and instead of open-heart surgery, he just needs to be watched…to make sure it doesn’t balloon more.
OMG.
My dad is certainly not out of the woods. He has a shit heart. He is half-bionic now. He has lots of scars. He can’t hold a cell phone on his left ear ever again. He is diabetic.
And it’s altogether possible that I have a shit heart too. My dad’s dad died suddenly of a heart aneurysm. They think that it’s possible that he died of the exact same thing that my dad has going on. Which, GENETICS. I effing hate genetics right now. I am now feeling a little bit thankful that I have chubby thighs. I’ll take my chubby thighs and tiny pea head and knobby knees any day over a shit heart and type II diabetes.
So, now, I am going home on Monday.
And I am going to find myself a family doctor. YES, I have lived in Canada for 13 years and I do not have a family doctor. I have a lady doctor and a bff who is a doctor and a father who is a doctor, so between the three of them, most of my questions are answered. I once test drove a doctor, but he looked too much like Steve from Blue’s Clues and when I asked him a question about blood pressure, he actually pulled out a medical textbook. He pulled it out and looked it up. He looked that shit up right there in front of me…which was when I went home and never went back to Dr. Blues Clues.
Now I need to find me a doctor. I need a physical. I need some blood tests. I need a cholesterol test. I need a CT scan to look for calcium.
I need to exercise. Not for my weight; for my heart.
I need to watch my sugars, my carbs, my salt. Not for my weight; for my heart.
I need to fight this. I can fight this. I will fight this.
Just watch me. Because the thought of Emily, Josh and Isabella sitting in a waiting room playing angry birds and hearing me say that I’m scared is enough motivation to do my damnedest to fight the stupid genetics.
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