I don’t get scared easily. Besides the first time it happened I didn’t realize anything scary was happening; I was just so tired.

It was Sunday so I didn’t have to go to work but my husband woke me at seven. “I need to go daven ” he apologized. “Can you get up?”

But I couldn’t. “I don’t feel well ” I muttered. I couldn’t even open my eyes.

“Okay ” he said uncertainly. “I’ll daven later.” I was already sleeping.

When he woke me again I was shocked. Eleven-thirty? It feels like I didn’t sleep at all. But he had missed every minyan and the kids were dismantling the apartment so I got up. I had to sit while I got dressed and after lifting my arm to pull it through my sleeve I had to rest for a minute before I raised my second arm.

My husband locked himself in the back room with his tallis and tefillin and I staggered to the couch.

Something is wrong.

Maybe I was dehydrated. I pushed myself into a sitting position. The kitchen was in sight. I would drink a ton of water and then I’d feel better.

“Sara come help Mommy walk to the kitchen.” I heaved myself up.

I need my five-year-old to help me walk to the kitchen.

I fell onto a kitchen chair. Too weak to sit I slumped onto the table.

“Avi!”

Was that my voice so thin and weak? I sent Sara to call him but the door was locked. The cordless incredibly was within reach; I called his cell phone but of course it was off.

I called my neighbor. “I don’t feel good ” I muttered unable to articulate anything more. “Can you take me to the doctor?”

She was there within minutes. “Can you walk to the car?”

“No ” I whispered.

The house was full of EMTs and beeping machines and radio static when my husband resurfaced. I saw his shock and confusion saw my neighbor talking rapidly saw him pulling clothes out of the dryer and dressing the kids. They carried me out on a stretcher.

My poor beautiful children are going to wear crumpled mismatched clothes forever.

I’d heard stories of outrageously long waits at the ER but when we got there a crowd of doctors and nurses descended on me immediately. My heart rate normally 60 to 80 beats per minute was up to 180; two doctors argued about electrical defibrillation versus a drug. I waved my hand.

“The drug.” The words came out in a gasp.

The drug was injected. It burned rapidly through my arm to my heart then the burning spread outward like lighting crackling all around.

My heart stopped

my breath vanished

the world fell away

away

away

and then it came rushing back like a thousand locomotives the repetitive thundering too fast too fast too fast.

The doctor watched the screen shook his head. “Try again.”

Again the plummeting. Again the pounding.

The doctor, tall and old and crusty and terse, ordered another drug to artificially slow my heart rate. Finally, four hours after the failed cardioversion, my heart reverted on its own to normal rhythm.

Later, the doctor explained that the heart is regulated by an electrical impulse. On occasion, the electrical impulse inexplicably begins to take the “wrong route” through the heart, which causes the heart rate to speed up. He assured me it was common among pregnant women, told me to follow up with a cardiologist, and sent me home.

I was exhausted — my heart had been racing, like I was running a marathon, for close to ten hours. But I wasn’t scared.

There were things I didn’t know then and things I didn’t want to know. But that would change as time went on. Like dominoes falling one after the other, I’d be forced to face not only the physical realities of the condition I’d later discover but also the personal implications, which would eventually drag me on a journey I never expected.

But that day I was fine. It was a one-time thing, I was blithely sure; it would never happen again. I was a 26-year-old kollel wife with two beautiful children and another on the way. Big deal, so I had landed in the hospital — a tiny blip in an otherwise normal pregnancy. So I was a little more tired; what else was new?

I was a coper, back on my feet, back at work. There was no need to worry. Nothing to be afraid of. I was young, strong, unafraid. Everything was under control.

...to be continued

(Originally featured in Family First Issue 571)