Sweet Poison. Janet Starr Hull
Sometimes I feel I wasn’t properly prepared for the demands of motherhood. Yet I had three boys under three years of age! Sean, my oldest, was three years old when Brian, my youngest, was born. At one-and-a-half, Alex was sandwiched in between. There were times I was so busy I didn’t know if I was coming or going.
The headaches started shortly after Brian was born. The worst ones struck right in the middle of my forehead. Annoying pin-points of light in my eyes showed up along with them. In addition, I was becoming cross and moody. My skin was drying out, and I was losing more of my hair than normal. I was really tired, too. Plus, I was putting on a few extra pounds. I guessed it was motherhood. Of course, my mind spun other possibilities but I pushed them away. I told myself to “keep on keepin’ on” with my daily routine. What else could I do?
The boys and I stopped over at Mom and Dad’s for lunch one day. I was going to tell my parents about my headaches. I never got to do it. Daddy was barbecuing his famous “Freddie Burgers,” giant hamburgers he invented way back. Two oversized hamburger patties sealed like a pie, “Freddie Burgers” are stuffed with mustard, shaved blue cheese, red ripe tomatoes, and fragrant onions. He carefully placed the patties with pride on his barbecue grill and seared the mounds of meat to perfection.
Mom took Sean and Alex to the store to buy them a toy while Dad and I remained home to prepare lunch. I situated the baby in his carry cradle, freeing my hands to assist Dad.
Dad went into the utility room to get his burgers from the spare refrigerator. He returned with a strange expression on his face. Slamming the glass dish on the table next to the baby in the cradle, he began to moan aloud. He buckled over and groaned louder.
“What’s wrong, Pop?” I asked with growing concern. Just then, he gasped for air, obviously in pain. Instinctively, I rushed to him before I could identify what was wrong. He collapsed in my arms. I don’t understand how I did it, but I broke his fall by catching him in my arms and gently lowered his 176-pound body to the floor.
“Daddy! Daddy!” I cried out. “Oh my God! Daddy!”
He was thrashing back and forth on the floor like a fish on a hook. His moaning pierced my daze as I jumped up and raced to the telephone to call for help. Nervously, I punched the emergency telephone number and asked for an ambulance. Then I returned to Daddy, who had now lost consciousness. Without thought, I immediately began CPR.
Between compressions, Daddy rotated his head in my direction and, with closed eyes, took a terrible labored breath. Afterward, his head relaxed and fell to the side. Then, to my horror, he stopped breathing completely. His face transposed from a pale white to a bruised blue and began to swell. He didn’t look like the same man he had been ten minutes earlier.
Daddy died in my arms while my baby slept quietly in his carrier.
“Daddy! Don’t die!” I begged. I continued CPR. How long I should keep it up, I didn’t know. I labored to force deep breaths into his mouth and drove straight-arm compressions to his chest, breathing again and again and pounding repeatedly. I continued until I was dizzy but I did not stop.
Totally exhausted, I continued on pure adrenaline. Between breaths I pleaded, “Daddy, don’t die. Come on, Daddy. DON’T DIE!”
Then he flinched, a sign he was responding to my aid. Forcing a feeble breath, he eventually opened his eyes, pleated his brow, and asked in confusion, “What happened? What’s going on?”
“Daddy,” I answered, exhausted, “I think you had a heart attack. An ambulance is on its way.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted. “You shouldn’t have called an ambulance.” I was afraid he would refuse help from the emergency squad when they arrived. I probably would have too if I were in his shoes. I realized, Now I know where I get my stubbornness. I also knew I’d lost him only minutes before but, for a fleeting moment, I doubted that it even happened. Then I remembered his final breath as if saying goodbye to me.
The paramedics arrived. They immediately removed the cardiac paddles from their bag preparing to use them and inserted an oxygen tube inside Daddy’s nose.
At the same moment, Mom came home with the boys. I tried to remain calm, buffer the situation from causing turmoil for the boys and Mom.
Daddy was transported to the local hospital where they installed a pacemaker inside his upper chest. Daddy has survived ever since on that one pacemaker.
Daddy’s life changed. Mom’s life changed. My life would never be the same. Little did I know that Daddy’s brush with death might have prepared me for my own fatal encounter.
With three active toddlers to care for and teaching aerobic classes six days a week, I received a call from the chairman of the Geography/Geology Department at the University of North Texas. “Would you be interested in teaching freshman geography classes and coordinating the respective laboratories?” Dr. Williams asked. Well, of course! I was thrilled. Joining a four-year university was a great opportunity. I gladly accepted the offer and faced an added ninety-mile commute to my already hectic schedule.
I had received my master’s degree in environmental science when I was pregnant with Sean. And then, in January 1989, when Brian was nearly two years old, I was returning to work as an adjunct professor. “Maybe going back to work will keep my mind off these pesky headaches. Maybe they’ll even go away,” I rationalized at the time.
I tried to blend my new full-time work schedule with motherhood. I arranged my classes around limited day care and still spent plenty of quality time with the boys every day. I maintained a regular exercise routine to keep in shape. This was when my problems first began to escalate beyond the headaches. Because of my busy schedule I developed habits I never had before. I ate on the run. There was no time to take care of myself. At home with the kids, my diet was fairly simple. After I started working, my diet got sloppy. I gained a few more unwanted pounds. I was busy! So busy, I unknowingly destroyed thirty-five years of perfect health.
Then I made the worst mistake. I started drinking more diet sodas. I had started drinking them just after Brian’s birth, but only sporadically. I knew better than to use artificial sweeteners. As an environmental scientist, I am aware that synthetic chemicals are not meant to be eaten. But after Brian was born, I wanted to lose the weight as quickly as possible and then with my new job, I was always in a hurry. Whenever I left campus, I treated myself to a cold diet drink for my long commute home. I cast aside all my previous training. Even as a child, I instinctively knew what was good and bad, natural and unnatural. But I wanted to lose weight and certainly not gain anymore. I would pay dearly for this mistake.
The headaches didn’t stop. And more bizarre symptoms began to appear.
Not only did I continue putting on extra pounds, but I began to retain water weight, which made me look swollen and puffy all the time. My aerobic buddies started teasing me about “gaining weight.” In the fitness industry, weight gain is seen as a sign of laziness. “You’re not working out enough,” they would say. So, on the days I didn’t teach aerobics, I began jogging.
I also tried eating less and less. What I did eat was mostly diet stuff. Logical, right? Exercise more, eat less, and eat low-fat or non-fat and sugar-free.
I filled my kitchen cabinets with boxes of food sated with preservatives, vacuum packages of low-fat, sugar-free snacks, and liters of artificially flavored, sugar-free drinks. The refrigerator was stocked with fat-free, sugar-free yogurt, low-fat processed cheese, the lowest fat-free margarine on the market, and more liters of diet soda. The freezer was lined with boxes and bags of low-fat, sugar-free weight-watchful