Widow Maker: A Cardiac Arrest/Recovery Chronicle

On June 3, 2015, my husband, Al Bartholet, took the Amtrak from Culpepper, Virginia, to Washington, D.C. He was traveling for WMRA Public Radio on business and was having a great time. Lunch with a former colleague…a trip to National Public Radio…a fancy dinner that night. The next day he was scheduled to meet a colleague at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

He felt terrific. Except for one thing: a burning sensation in the crooks of both arms. He called me and told me about the strangely uncomfortable feeling, and we agreed that he might want to see his doctor when he returned home the next day.

But by the next day, Al was in ICU, fighting for his life.

Al had ignored the burning sensation but could not overlook the cold sweat and dizziness that swept over him after we finished talking. He called the front desk clerk, asking for help but was unconscious by the time the paramedics burst through the door to his room. The next thing he remembered was a misty rain falling on his face as they loaded him into the ambulance—he remembers asking what was going on (“You’re having an MI.” “What’s that?” “Heart attack.”)—but that’s it.

He did not know that his heart stopped twice in the ambulance. He did not know that the emergency room doctors at George Washington University Hospital thought he was dead when he arrived. He did not know that doctors (many of them medical professionals from other countries…Iran, Syria) worked to save his life for the next hour and a half. Three days later they finally brought him out of his deep, drug-induced sleep.

It took me the better part of a day to get to Al after his heart attack/cardiac arrest. While I waited in the Raleigh Airport to catch an emergency flight into DC, I wrote the first poem that eventually became a collection of poems that now is being published by Finishing Line Press. “Widow Maker” was the poem—Widow Maker is the title of the book:

Widow Maker

She breaks hearts.
Snaps them in half—
pockets one piece—
sinks perfect white incisors
into the remainder.
You are tender—
delicious—to her.
Next year
she might go rogue again—
extracting your pocketed half heart
to take another bite.
You want to reclaim
this stolen piece of you—
but she just stands there—
heart in upturned palm.
You are stunned—
frozen—
and then you realize—
it is not your heart.

In 2015, there were nearly 370,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests; more than 90% of them were fatal. Clearly, Al was more than just lucky. Surviving his multiple cardiac arrests was a miracle.

But recovery from any heart event can be a long, grueling road that often is laced with depression. Together, he and I learned how to cope as he healed. It was not easy, but life—post-heart attack—has been rich and happy and lovely (grandsons make a big difference!). I often think about the things that Al would have missed if he had not survived that day.

I hope that Widow Maker becomes a source of inspiration and strength to many people. The poems examine a wide range of experiences…from being in the ICU to navigating the sometimes-confusing schedule of meds to grappling with feelings about the body’s betrayal and more. If you decide to purchase your own copy (which I hope you will!), please also consider buying an additional copy to give away…to a friend going through cardiac issues, to be left at a local coffee shop, to donate to a local library or cardiac rehab facility. When you order two or more copies before May 30, please let me know and I will enter your name into a special drawing for Widow Maker swag. There will be three winners in this drawing, and I also will make a $50 donation to the George Washington University Hospital in the name of the top winner of the drawing.

Order Widow Maker today at: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/shop/