Reflection - Where were YOU on that fateful day or Horror??? 9/11 changed all of our lives and this world forevermore...

Gosh and 2001 had already proven to be one of the most hardest years of my life. On the 8th day of January 2001, I had a heart attack. That was about 10 AFTER the man I was married to for almost 18 YEARS walked in on Christmas Day 2000 ( he had been gone like usual and I had no clue where)... So, the kids, and some of their friends, were at the house for Christmas Day. When he showed up, he "threw' a present at me, said he was leaving, and probably would not be back, got some clothes and left. Everyone was gone that morning that I drove myself 20 miles to the closest ER. I had been not feeling well, and having some chest pain for the 3 days prior. I thought I may have bronchitis, so I called my doctor at the time. He told me to get to the nearest ER immediately. Well, I was "chatting" with a dear friend who lives in Malta, and she told me if I did not either call the ambulance or get myself to the ER, she was going to call from Malta, here to TX, where I was and have the ambulance come and get me herself. So, I promised her I would go, and thus got up and went there. As I drove, I put on my flashers, but did not want to drive too fast. I had no clue what my might while I was driving. But, I made it to the ER, walked in and told them about the chest pains, and they immediately and swiftly got me in a room, began an IV, gave me an aspirin, and started doing an EKG, blood tests etc... they also came in and gave me medication into the IV, that cost 2,500.00 for one dose... a bit later a doctor walked in and he told me that I had an MI, and that the initial blood work showed I could have massive damage to the heart muscle. I still had not called anyone to tell them. But, they knew me there at the hospital because I had worked as a Patient Rep there for 6 years, and one of the nurses told another friend of mine who was still there in the business office. She in turn called my parents, etc. They wanted to transfer me to Baylor in Dallas. But, they had to stabilize me first before they could. So, I was put in the ICU unit... I found out that $2,500.00 injection probably saved my life... it was one of the newer "clot busters" & it basically stopped the heart attack and prevented further damage to my heart. But, it was still unclear until they got me to Baylor via ambulance the next day. I HATE ambulances and hope I never have to ride in one again. I had already done that twice, and then after that I actually have been once again in an ambulance I think now 3 three or so... Anyway, as soon as I was put in a room in the cardiac unit there at Baylor, they began tests to see what was going on, how much damage, if I needed stents and so forth. So, they did an angiogram, which they put an incision right almost at the bend of my thigh and pelvis, ran wires up to my heart, where they could see what was going on.... well, I was of course awake, maybe a bit sedated but not much, and the doctor said something like OMG or something. I thought he had found something horrible, but he saw one of my main arteries going into my heart spasm... thus they felt that may be a part of the factor to the heart attack I had at 40!!! From there they discovered that the damage was minimal due to that injection, which was why at first the enzymes in my blood were so high... it stopped the damage thus allowed those enzymes to be rather extreme... I went home 7 days later, with ONE thing that shall always stick in my mind. I saw my cardiologist about 2 weeks later. He told me either I CHANGE everything in my life and do whatever it takes to get away out of the grips of whom was making me sick and hurting me... mentally, physically and emotionally, OR he would kill me one way or the other... so I went home, got myself together, packed what little I could after my 6 week follow up and headed for Lancaster CA. I had made a couple of friends there via the internet... and Aimee told me I could come stay with her and her Father, get a job, and I could stay there even after she moved into her apartment and have her room at her Dad's home. So, I did. I got busy trying to find a job... in fact for a couple of weeks, my "job" was to find a job. And I did. I was supposed to start one, and it got delayed because that company did not have their equipment, computers and so forth ready yet. So, I interviewed for another, and was to go to work that next week. In the meantime the place that helped me find the job, had a "temporary" job in a warehouse close to where I had been staying. I could work that for a couple of shifts until I went to work that Saturday at my permanent job. Well, in the process of cleaning up shelves and so forth in this HUGE warehouse, I knelt down on my "bad left knee" and I felt it immediately. I had torn more stuff and damaged it. I had to leave the pain was so bad, and by the next morning it was swollen so much I could barely bend it... But, I worked that Saturday at the new job, loved it, and my thoughts were to stay work long enough to get on insurance, and have the knee seen about. But as that day wore on, my knee got worse. That Sunday, I made the difficult decision and had no choice but to get in the car with my stuff and come back to Texas. I was still covered by the insurance that paid for the heart attack. I got back here and within a week had seen an Orthopedic Surgeon, had an MRI, and was having knee surgery. From there I got "better" and went down to Austin to find a job. A dear friend of Aimee's lived in Austin, so I was staying with her and her boyfriend... I had found a job, and while I was there, I exercised, walked, and did house work and so forth for her, and got in much better shape physically. So, my plan was to actually move much closer to my parents and to the kids, so I decided Austin was just not where I needed to be... so on September 11th, 2001 I was in Ft. Worth TX, heard something on the radio, and turned the TV on to watch the 2nd plane hit the 2nd World Trade Center Tower... after that everything was just nuts.... I watched for hours and hours that horror unfold... I could not take my eyes off the TV... and I called my Mom and Dad, because at the moment none of us knew exactly what could happen... so I tried to get hold of everyone to tell them I was safe, and check on them. I made a brief stop back in Ennis, and then is when my life entirely changed for the better. In the back of my mind, was that voice of my Cardiologist, get out and away from "him" - speaking of my now ex-husband or he is going to hurt you in one way or the other... thus on October 31st, Halloween Night, 2001 i got off the bus in Seattle WA, which totally gave me a new life, new job, new friends, and I was "free" of the abuse and horror that I had been through for years in TX. I filed for a divorce before I left TX, then flew back later to "seal" it in front of the judge. For 5 years there in Seattle, I cannot begin to tell you how much I changed, I grew stronger, I had more faith in myself, I made my own decisions, I loved my job as an Apartment Manager, and even bought my 1st car, that was my own. From there the story goes on, moving back to TX 5 years later due to needing to be here for my Mom and kids... but to this day, I shiver at what I saw on that TV, and witnessed the bravery of many who risked their lives to save others.... I am sure for many of us, there is a deep scar in our hearts, that still remains after that day of horror... and now we live in a MUCH different world for sure.... we have to be diligent everywhere, from church, to a Mall, to our schools, to even a Movie Theater.... to just being out on the street or highways driving. Since 9/11... our lives are lived around almost an "untold" and "unspoken" deep seeded fear, that anywhere we go or are, we could be a target for someone who hates mankind... the terrorists are not just in New York, not just overseas, but they are our next door neighbors, a family member, or that stranger in a car that may drive by.... that is right our children will never know and their children... that "freedom" is not what it used to be... It is sad and now once again this nation and just about every nation in the world have "turmoil", war, death, starvation, droughts, terrorists, people that "prey" on their own kind... the reflection in the "mirror" of life is no more and never will be again.... Thanks Jason Harber what you said and what Amanda Batson- Matheny said along with many of us will reflect on today... and just how much we have changed as "humans" of how we feel we must "not trust" as much, we can find ourselves living in a "fear" and may not even realize it... The Memory of the Loss of so many innocent lives will always remain, and what those terrorists took was something from ALL of us... and left us with fear.... my thoughts, prayers, and in Remembrance of ALL who "lost" - I pray that no more will we have to endure such horror....