The doctors had been discussing putting Gary into a medically induced coma for the weekend; I am so grateful that they didn’t, even though it caused him such great distress. He had several emotional and mental breakthroughs that weekend, breakthroughs that set us on the path I’m on now, as shaky and uncertain as it is, that I’ll detail later, but not tonight.
This was the most at peace I’d seen him since we got there.
From 2017: Gary is sleeping.
I put Great Big Sea radio on. He’s drifted off, his hand in mine.
I’d be lying if I said my sleep has gotten better over the past twelve months.
From 2017: So I’m back at the hospital. Five minutes after I got home, medicated Teaz’ka, fed him and Mojo, and used the bathroom, the doctor called. Gary had gone back into VT and gotten shocked.
Ten minutes after I got here, he went back into VT and got shocked again. Twenty minutes after that, same same.
He’s being given lidocaine to try to handle the arrhythmias, and they’ve put defibrillator patches on him. He’s not getting any fucking rest. He’s afraid to relax, because every time he does, he goes into VT storm.
He’s so exhausted that maybe he’ll sleep.
Gary Hoffman is feeling scared. 9 September 2017 · Valhalla ·
Five shocks, vtach storms, and no food since Thursday. Obviously ablation didn’t get it. Got a couple hours sleep after constant panic attacks. On lots of drugs. Will see docs in an hour or two. Thanks to Lysa Schwartz Hoffman and @a*****z for helping me not be alone.
Gary did do well. Nine+ hours of cardiac ablation surgery. The doctors were cautiously optimistic.
It didn’t last.
From 2017: As soon as he was sedated, the vt stopped, so they had to use adrenaline to trigger it. Small circuits inside his heart, triggered only from where they were ablating.
Long story short, he’s in his room, resting, in pain, but done.
For now.
From the beginning.
Well, it wouldn’t be summer at Hoffman House without a cardiac event. G’s ICD did its job at about 10:15pm, shocking him.
After dinner and an episode of Narcos, he’d gone into VT and tried to cardiovert on his own, which didn’t work. I heard him coughing, trying vasovagal maneuvers, and asked if he was ok. He said that I might need to call an ambulance. Then he got shocked.
After calming down some, I told him I was going upstairs to get his clothes, and I would drive him here, where his doctors are, where his surgeries have all been, and where they have the proper equipment to care for him.
He’s had a chest x-ray, blood drawn, and an EKG. We’re waiting for test results.
“The implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) is a device designed to monitor the heartbeat. This device can deliver an electrical impulse or shock to the heart when it senses a life- threatening change in the heart’s rhythm. Like a pacemaker, the ICD is small enough to be implanted.”
His ICD is smaller than the palm of my hand, and cost about a quarter-million bucks. Of course, our health insurance is right squack in the middle of changing over to MVP. Because of course it is.
One year ago right now.
We’d had a late dinner, as per usual. Watched Narcos. I was in the kitchen, cleaning up. I heard Gary coughing, hard, in the living room. Poked my head in, “are you okay?” “I think you’re going to want to call an ambulance.” I sat down on the couch catty-corner to him. “Vagal maneuvers?” I asked. He nodded, coughing more forcefully to try and stop the v-tach storm he was currently experiencing. Then his eyes went wide, he put his hands out and got shocked. He shouted, as he does every time he gets shocked. I waited till it was over, which seems like it took a year. “Are you okay now?” He nodded. I said, “okay. I’m going to go upstairs, get your bag. We’re going to go to the hospital. Why don’t you start the group text while I’m busy.” he nodded again, grateful for something to keep his hands busy while his brain trying to comprehend the fact that his life was just saved by the small piece of metal in the video. He started the group text. I got him dressed in very loose clothing, and took him to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla. Funny, it being in Valhalla. I kept him up to date on our ETA every 2 minutes.
That sound you hear in the video, that’s what I hear every 4 hours. His ICD triggers every 4 hours and makes that sound. The doctors told me that they could shut it off, or make it go off once a day… Whenever it goes off I say, “hey, babe.” He hated that word so I never said it when he was alive. But it was one of my favorite things to call him.
More tomorrow. I am so tired.
The girl on the right has no idea that a few hours later, she’s going to watch her husband get his life saved by his defibrillator/pacemaker right in their living room. She has no idea that the trip to the emergency room that night will be the last time she takes her husband there.
That it is the last week on this planet for her husband.
I miss you more, Gary. I miss you so goddamn much.
This is me, twelve months ago today, mere hours before the very last car ride to Westchester Medical Center with Gary. I was feeling confident in the way I looked, not as confident as I do now, but confident all the same. We had made great strides in our troubled marriage, great strides to understand each other, to try and see and feel where the other person was coming from.
These past 12 months have been incredibly difficult, so hard, so unbelievably hard. I still don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, how I’m going to be able to survive the rest of my life.
What I do know is that I was as strong as I possibly could be for him, for us. I remember everything that happened as if it happened yesterday. The sound of him coughing from the living room, attempting to avoid being shocked, attempting vasovagal maneuvers is etched into my memory as if it were in the next room right now.
The girl in this photograph is at work, feeling cute, wanting to remember how she looks for the future, when maybe she doesn’t feel quite as cute or as confident.
The girl writing this now is getting ready for work, not feeling confident at all, but knowing that she has to get through another day. All the days. Until she can’t anymore.
Nine days before Gary died, I made this.
It has never felt more true than now.
This piece sold; I’ll make another.
And another.
And another.
Missing my husband something fierce.
It’s coming up on a year since he died at age 46 from a pulmonary embolism and I am still no closer to knowing what I’m doing.
He remains the smartest man I’ve ever met. And he loved me; finally began to understand me that last year, especially those final six days.
From 2002, on the bleachers at Harrison High School.
The Salty Widow 