His face grew more serious with each result.
“Sarah, you have a condition called ventricular tachycardia. Your heart’s electrical system is misfiring. Without treatment, this could lead to sudden cardiac arrest.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“What kind of treatment?”
“We need to do a catheter ablation. We’ll go in through your femoral artery, find the area that’s misfiring, and ablate it. Essentially, we create a small scar that stops the abnormal electrical pathway.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“All heart procedures carry risk, but without it, you’re at serious risk. We need to schedule this soon.”
I scheduled it for three weeks out. I needed time to arrange child care and prepare.
I didn’t tell my parents because I didn’t want to hear my mother tell me I was overreacting.
I planned to ask my friend Jennifer from work to watch Emma during the procedure.
But two days before my scheduled surgery, everything accelerated.
I was giving Emma dinner. Mac and cheese, her favorite.
Then my heart didn’t just skip.
It seized.
I felt a crushing pain in my chest radiating down my left arm. The room spun. I couldn’t breathe.
Emma looked at me with her big brown eyes.
“Mama?”
“Okay,” I managed.
I dialed 911 before I collapsed.
The last thing I remember before the paramedics arrived was Emma’s little hand patting my face, saying, “Mama, wake up.”
In the ambulance, they told me I had gone into sustained VT. My heart rate was over two hundred beats per minute. They had to cardiovert me, shock my heart back into rhythm.
I needed emergency surgery that night.
That was when I called my parents.
And that was when they told me they had concert tickets.
Patricia, the nanny from Elite Care, was a godsend.
She was in her fifties, with twenty years of NICU experience and the calm competence of someone who had seen everything.
She arrived at the ER in under thirty minutes, assessed the situation immediately, and scooped Emma into her arms.
“Mama has to go help some doctors,” she told Emma in a soothing voice. “You and I are going to have a fun sleepover at your house. We’ll read stories and have snacks, and when you wake up, Mama will call you. Does that sound good?”
Emma, who usually had stranger danger, nodded and reached for Patricia’s hand.
Something about this woman radiated safety.
“Thank you,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face.
