To See the Badlands

There’s a line in Antje Duvekot’s song Long Way that says, “The South Dakota Badlands touched me more than I can explain.”  I will try to explain what the Badlands are like, but I know I can’t do it justice.

As you enter the park, it looks like prairie.  Then, as you continue driving, you’ll go around a corner and over a small hill, and then BAM:

 You learn what the Badlands are.  It’s not just prairie.

I first went to the National Park in May of 2011.  When I got there, the winds were blowing so badly, my tent looked like this:

I camped in a “primitive” campground with outhouses and picnic tables.  No water, no people.  The bison kept me company, though...

 

And the prairie dogs.

I went to sleep to the sound of the bison outside my tent stomping the ground.  I could hear the grass squeak in their teeth as they ripped it from the ground, they were so close.  I was nervous, but I wasn’t scared.  I would have been more scared of strange people than strange animals, and there were no people.

I woke up to the chirping of prairie dogs and the gobbling of wild turkeys. 

Each night, I would climb the hill to see the sunset.  It was always worth it.

They have a log book in the campground, and if you want to venture off and hike into the great expanse, you can.  Just write your name, which direction you’re going, what day you’re leaving, and what day you expect to be back, and then you go.  There’s no place more liberating.  I spent my nights in the campground, but hiked to my heart’s content during the day.

My first night was rough.  The wind was so bad that I almost decided to drive on to Minnesota.  I’m glad I didn’t.  The next two days were the days that touched my soul.  I want to go back more than I could tell.  Next time I'll leave my car in the campsite and walk and camp until I feel like coming back.

What it's Really like to Have Open-Heart Surgery

I was 11 months old when I had my first open-heart surgery, and 13 years old when I had my second.  I would first like to describe exactly what it’s like to have heart surgery, and then explain what was wrong with my heart.

What Heart Surgery is Like

I had my surgery in Minneapolis and arrived there by ambulance on a Friday. Since it was a Friday, they didn’t want to perform the operation with weekend staff there, and since I was stable, I waited until Monday to have the surgery.

I waited, all right—and with no food or drink.  That was probably the worst part about pre-surgery.  If I had a nice nurse, she would give me crushed ice with a tiny bit of apple juice.  I got very pale and thin.  I was told that I was having congestive heart failure.  That’s only a big deal if it continues without care.  It didn’t hurt, and I wasn’t throwing up anymore (thanks to the drugs).

On Monday October 11, 2009 I had open-heart surgery.  I imagined that I would be wheeled down a scary corridor and into the operating room and I would get progressively more and more scared.  That’s not how it works at all.  They put something in my IV that made me fall asleep in my room while they were prepping my bed.  I don’t have memories of even leaving my room.

They weren’t sure what kind of damage had been done in my heart, but I came out of a five hour operation without needing a steel valve.  They used Teflon to patch the damaged area and reinforce it.  That part of my heart is now super strong and will never break again.  When you wake up from surgery, you have three IVs in you at once.  One in your neck with a catheter that goes to your heart; the other in an artery in your arm; and the last is the one is in your other arm—the same one you have when you’re first admitted to the hospital where they put the medications and IV fluids in.  The coolest thing is the two tubes that come out of your abdomen right below the incision.  They remove the fluid from around your heart.  They don’t hurt at all, and it actually felt pretty cool to have them pulled out.  J  You also have a catheter, which is not a comfortable thing, but it’s better than a bed pan!  The last large tube coming out of your body is a ventilator.  It’s used to make sure you breathe properly during and after the surgery, and it’s taken out the day after you have the operation. It was uncomfortable, but not painful.  It wasn’t pleasant to have pulled out, but after it’s over, it’s over. 

While you’re under, they put Vaseline over your eyes so they don’t dry out.  When I woke up in my hospital room, I still had it on my eyes and I couldn’t see anything.  You also don’t have motor abilities, so I couldn’t reach my arms up to wipe my eyes.  I woke up only hours after I came out of the surgery, then I promptly went back to sleep and woke up again in the middle of that night.  I was doped up on morphine, and fondly remember the night after my surgery and smile—it was a lot of fun!  But I didn’t have morphine for more than 1-2 days post-surgery.

Recovery was difficult, but faster than you might imagine.  I had surgery on Monday, went home on Friday, and went to a Halloween party on Saturday.  Everything exhausted me, but I could get around slowly.  When they operate on a heart, they have to cut through your sternum, and when they’re done, they stitch it closed with wire.  While your bone is growing back together, it is extremely painful.  It’s uncomfortable to sleep, and reaching, bending, picking things up and carrying things hurt like crazy.  But within a few months you’re back to normal with a sweet battle wound down your front that’s hard to hide and makes all your v neck shirts look crooked.  For the record, I don’t mind my scar.  I’ve had a scar for as long as I remember—it’s a part of me.  I don’t know what I’ll do when it fades!

Why I had Heart Surgery

I was born with a hole in my heart.  More specifically, it was a hole in the interventricular septum—the wall between the two bottom chambers of the heart.  I had surgery when I was 11 months old to stitch up that hole.  What we didn’t know back then is that the wall wasn’t quite as strong as it should have been.  Your aorta comes down into your heart and shares some tissue with the interventricular septum.  Right above the aortic valve, there are three little sinuses.  They’re really just small bulges in the base of the aorta.  It’s called Sinus of Valsalva.  Well, the weak (or thin) wall of my heart included that sinus, and by the time I was 13, an aneurysm had formed.

I had my burst aneurysm when I was 13 years old.  At least, that’s when it burst.  I don’t know if I had the aneurysm before then or not.  Here’s what an aneurysm is:  It’s an abnormal bulging in an artery.  You have arteries in your brain, heart, abdomen, and legs.  Aneurysms become especially dangerous when they burst.

My aneurysm was not typical, and lucky for me it wasn’t.

This is what happened when my aneurysm burst:  I was running my dog through an agility course one Thursday night.  After I ran the course, I noticed that my heart hadn’t slowed down quite right.  I told my mom, and that night I ate dinner and went to bed.  The next morning I woke up, and my resting heart rate was 160 beats per minute.  When my mother and sisters saw me, they were shocked and said they could see my heart beating through my chest.  It was pretty serious.  So everyone went to school and work like normal, and my dad took me to the ER.  They took the longest ultrasound in the history of mankind, and sent me off in an ambulance to Minneapolis Children’s Hospital.  By this point, my body didn’t know how to react, and I was vomiting.  I wasn’t in any pain.  I was completely coherent.  I was very tired.

When I arrived in the Twin Cities, my doctor told me that I had a burst aneurysm in my heart.  He said that all they knew about burst aneurysms it that although they are very rare, they seem to occur mostly in middle-aged Asian men.  I was a young, white girl.  He said that I would need to have surgery to repair it.  So I did.  I never thought about any risk involved.  I wasn’t even scared.  I trusted my doctors, and everything came out A-OK!

What it's Really Like to Almost Drown

Let’s get a few things straight.  Lots of people have some serious misconceptions about what it's like to drown.  They say it's painful.  They say it's terrifying.  How would you like to know what it's like from a survivor who really experienced it herself?  I won't hide anything, and I'll give it to you straight.  Here's what happened in the summer of 2011:

I was swimming at a beautiful location on the North Shore of Lake Superior.  I'd been there a several times before, and I was excited to bring a group of 16 people there to share the beauty.  At this particular spot, Baptism River joins Lake Superior.  There wasn't a fast current.  The rivers waters were warm, but the lake was cold.  I wanted to swim to that spot where the drastic temperature difference could be felt.

I can swim.

A girl who also enjoyed the feeling of the water could not swim.  I swam out as she walked.  Then she walked off a drop-off.  Although I can swim, I'm not a strong swimmer, and I don't like to swim in deep water, so I decided to swim back towards the shore as she stepped into deep water.  I saw her go under, and she reached for me.

Now I'll go ahead and tell you what I should have done:
1.  Yell to the victim:  "CALM DOWN!"
2.  Get the attention of the people on the shore, and if any of them have anything to throw to the victim, it should be thrown.
3.  Swim BEHIND the victim, and pull them to shallow water in a manner that does not allow them to grab you with their arms.
4.  If the victim is grabbing you, you should push them, punch them, or do whatever it takes to not just save their life, but prevent yourself from becoming a victim, too.

This is what I did that afternoon:
I thought I could just push her back over the drop-off to where her feet could touch again, so I swam towards her.  Then she panicked and grabbed me.  I could not touch the ground, so I went under, too.  We struggled like that for a couple minutes, each of us instinctively trying to get above the water by any means available.  And the only way was to climb on the other and push her under.  I thought that if I could get more air, I could help her.  Each time I came up, I screamed for help--I didn't take in any air.

It didn't seem to take more than a minute before I blacked out.  The people on shore say it was at least a couple minutes.  The last thing I remember was getting extremely mad and thinking to myself, "I am NOT going to die like this!"  Although I can swim, I'm a very insecure swimmer, and I had always been scared of drowning.  That summer I had been working for a youth organization.  12 of the people on shore were teenagers that I brought there.  I didn't want them to see anyone die.  I didn't want the program to have a horrible memory of the incident.  I didn't want swimming to be banned from the program forever because of a death--or two (gulp).  SO, I thought to myself, "I am NOT going to die like this!...........But how am I going to make it out of this alive?"  I went very deep into the water, and I may have waited and hoped for my feet to touch the ground and I could rebound up.  It didn't happen.  Everything went black and I was unconscious.

The next thing I remember was waking up on the beach.  My friend pulled me from the water.  He said that my body was lingering just an inch or two below the surface of the water, and here's what I'm sure is etched into his memory forever:  My eyes were open wide.  So, I woke up on the beach, laying on my right side.  I felt like vomiting, but never did.  I did feel the need to spit, though, which is weird for me--I hate spitting.

I felt exhausted, my head hurt, I was weak.  I was concerned for the other girl.  I could speak, but it must have been very quiet.  There was an EMT visiting the beach with his family, so he was asking me questions, but didn't hear all of my answers.  I tried to sit up enough to look behind me to see the other girl, but I couldn't, so I stayed still.  An ambulance was called, and they took the other girl away first.  I didn't see any of it.  Soon another ambulance came for me.  I thought that I would be fine, that I just needed time, and I could move myself.  But it was too much, so I let them put me on the board, and several men carried me up long flights of stairs on a hillside to the ambulance.  By then I was able to transfer myself onto the stretcher.

In the ambulance I learned that my heartbeat was racing.  I can usually feel my heart beating, and I was shocked at this information.  How could it be beating so fast when I was so tired?  Well, it was.  But it slowed down a bit by the time we reached the hospital 40 minutes away.

In the hospital they drew blood and took x-rays of my lungs to make sure there wasn't any water in them.  There wasn't.  The epiglottis is a little flap of cartilage that keeps food and water from going into your lungs when you swallow.  It automatically closes when you nearly drown.

Within an hour I was released from the hospital.  We went back "home."  The other girl was also released from the hospital.  I still felt like I was going to vomit.  My sinuses were killing me, my head was pounding, and I was exhausted.  The other girl ate dinner with the rest of the group, and I tried to stomach a piece of bread and some canned fruit.  I had to use the bathroom a lot, so I must have swallowed some water.  I didn't sleep very well that night, but by morning I was on an eight hour boat ride--just doing my job--to visit a crew on an island in Lake Superior.  I hated the taste of water for weeks--it all tasted like Lake Superior to me.

It was, by far, the most terrifying experience of my life, but somehow it wasn't as bad as I thought drowning would be.  There was no pain--just fear.  And recovery was incredible considering I almost died.  I was 100% back to normal within 48 hours (except for my fear of water).  If I had to choose death by drowning or by fire, I would choose drowning.  Only two minutes of fear, and then you feel like you fell asleep.  I'm not exactly scared of water anymore, either.  I don't want to swim in deep water, and I would wear a life jacket if I did.  But I love to be around water again.  And on it.  Just not so much submerged in it.