Living in a Postscript

A week ago, we woke to the stone edged green patchwork that is the hills of Ireland. We were towards the end of our fifteen day stay; travelling with friends and filled to the brim with life, laughter and love.

That we are on this trip is miraculous in and of itself. Since Rich’s hospitalizations this year, there has been a big question mark on whether we would be boarding the plane at all.

We began the entresto in earnest while in the hospital. It had been hammered into us that this was THE drug for heart failure. We’ve had difficulties with it but were ready to be on board and do what we could to tolerate and embrace this medication. The positive results by others were giving us strength. The goal was to have Rich on three heart medications to keep his kidneys happy and to help heal his heart. Entresto, Hydralazine and Isordil started slow and easy. Half doses, spaced timing of meds and the slow introduction of each of the super three. We found any two, in any combination, dose or timing was fine. When a third, again, of any of the combo, was introduced, we found the low blood pressure numbers returned, the fatigue beyond bearing. With our heart failure doctor texting and calling, we tried and re-tried the combinations. Finally, we had to come to a stop. Each modification had brought days of unbalance in all its forms. We had one week before we boarded our plane… we had to allow two meds to settle in and hold off on the third. There was no other choice if we were to travel.

Rich was advised to stop his cardiac PT until after our return. And as for our travels, he was told to avoid hiking. Avoid the very thing we went to do! How to not plod through rock strewn fields, along windswept cliffs, by Guinness-colored churning rivers and streams, through changing autumn woodlands? To walk the city streets of the Troubles and in the paths of writers, musicians and artists? We’d have to find balance as we have all along this journey. As we continue to try to find with medications. To temper the eagerness of travel with the realities of the physical heart.

As with all things, Rich welcomes our travels with gladness and intentions to experience it all. We prepare with the trekking poles that saw good use in Iceland… the 2016 trip we took to successfully test our post-transplant travel waters. We laugh that just one letter changes the names of these two countries… as if a simple typo took us from one instead of the other. We continue to pack as wisely as we can. Wind and weather provided for. Plans for keeping to our way of eating as much as possible to maximize heart health. We look for all the variables that may trip us up and discuss modifications that we may need to use.

The itinerary that Arlene and I work through is a wonderful mix of history, food, landscape, food, music, food, architecture and, yes, more food. We try to find an equilibrium between forts, castles, abbeys, tombs, hills, cliffs, stone circles and waterfalls… although we do seem too excited by food! We dissect travel times and try to figure how long we’ll spend where. We wildly miscalculate our interests but even that ultimately becomes part of our adventure.

With Kevin steering on the wrong side of the car, and the car on the wrong side of the road, we make our way around Ireland. We lay our heads mostly in country-side B&B’s and castles at night. We meet and chat with fellow travelers. We enjoy the music of the pubs, share experiences with strangers and find we keep the memories of all we’ve met with us on our trip. Songs follow us in our travels. We embrace the Céad Míle Fáilte… the hundred thousand welcomes we experience. The lilting cadence of the Irish speech offers us surcease like a lullaby.

We have a few reminders of health issues along the way. Despite our best intentions, it is not easy to keep carbs low in a country where root vegetables reign and salads are not the norm. Where time differences can be felt, where landscapes are rugged underfoot and where excitement overcomes caution. The northern Wild Atlantic Way tests Rich and with a few exceptions, he comes through unscathed. Our pace is more measured, and I keep an eye on the small cues of distress. A few unexpected hillside trails cause us to take a thing or two off our itinerary and offer us instead time to relax or enjoy some views we otherwise may not have found. A bit of weather meets up with us as two storms, Hurricane Helene and Storm Ali clash above us and buffet us around the Slieve League Cliffs. The sea was swept up the 1,972’ high mountain cliffs in a flume of spray and holding a camera still in the 100mph+ winds is near to impossible. As Arlene says “we could have come on a beautifully sunny day and had a wonderful time and taken great photos. Now we have a story!”

A story. Our story. Stories intertwined with friends, family and those unknown that spread like a web and embrace us.

Two weeks yet also too soon we’re back home. Time changes once again. Congestion begins. Rich’s chest is heavy.

Is this a bug that Rich’s still-compromised immune system has picked up? Is it a response to the too-many carbolicious meals? Is it too much fluid from a tired, and so less efficient heart? Lasix is boosted, rest is sought. We’ve been too long without an infection. We’re not ready to travel that road again.

Tonight we plan, for the first time in the week since our return, to enjoy the photos we took and relive the goal reached. A magical respite. Years in the making, we’ve now, with a little help from our friends, sailed the clear blue waters, walked the high cliffs, strolled the country lanes, and sang the old songs of a welcoming land. Always will these days be in our hearts.

Postscript
By Seamus Heaney

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.