It has been a long time since I posted. What has happened in the meantime. We had 4 deaths in the family in the year of 06. 2 in June - my husbands mother and his 52 yo cousin. My MIL died from cancer and the cousin had a massive heart attack. Her death was expected and we literally watched her fade away over the period of a year. His death was totally unexpected. But both were shocks. Then in September my husbands favorite aunt died but she was 98 so she live a good long happy life. Then my favorite aunt of my husband died 2 weeks after I had a heart attack. 2006 was not a good year.

I am fine, the heart attack occurred as I was having an angiogram - best way to have one. You are already in the hands of a cardiologist and trained heart staff so bingo, they can do every thing possible to minimize the damage. According to the doctor, I came out of the attack no worse than when I went in - still have a heart condition but it wasn't made worse by the attack. The hardest part of the whole experience was waiting in the hospital for the final tests before they would let me go home. I kept getting bumped off the list by patients who were sicker than me. Finally I got to go home.

It is a hard realization - both my husband and myself are effectively orphans, and our kids have no living grandparents. At least the 3 of them are old enough to have known my mother and my husband's parents.

Oh, the major drawback to the heart attack is I am now on blood thinners which means I can no longer take aspirin or motrin. Since those were the most effective against the arthritis, I am now dealing with more discomfort. Oh well, at least I am alive. And relatively sane and happy.