Mother’s Day Meditation

We lost my mom 5 years ago today. I wrote this piece a few days later in what started my ongoing writing habit.

This Mother’s Day as I adjust to life without my own mom, I reflect on what a blessing she was while lamenting the health care malaise that contributed to her passing. Kathy Donovan led a big life in every way- imposing stature, magnetic personality, hearty laugh, and exceptional mind; she was the life of every party and the center of every room.

After spending thirty years as a Navy wife, leaving an indelible mark on tight-knit military communities from Washington state and Virginia to Germany and back, my mom found her true calling as an educator. Returning to school following a 20 year hiatus to finish her bachelor’s degree, she began her second career as a math teacher in the Norfolk Public School system.

Kathy approached teaching the same way she tackled life- with indomitable spirit, love, and great humor. She spent several successful years in the classroom, earning the respect and admiration of her colleagues and picking up a Masters in Urban Education along the way. Her subsequent transition to math specialist represented a real turning point in her career, and allowed her to imbue students of all grades with her passion for learning. In April of 2011 she was honored as her school’s teacher of the year, named to Norfolk’s “All-City Teaching Team,” distinguishing herself among the top 12 finalists, and received an “Inspiration Award” as the most outstanding math educator in the city.

Just 10 days later, while preparing her lesson plan as Chair for the upcoming Standards of Learning testing, she suffered a massive heart attack in her home office. Thanks to a prompt 911 response and the efforts of the heart specialists at Virginia Beach General, my mother received a stent allowing her to fight for over a week on life support. Sadly, the lack of oxygen during her cardiac arrest caused immense damage to the brain, and she would never regain consciousness.

After the shock turned to grief, my next reaction was one of anger: how could this happen? In a world where “women’s health” is the most uttered phrase in political and marketing campaigns alike, how could an otherwise healthy, active, and vibrant 54 year old be blind-sided by a 99% blocked artery? If she were a middle aged man with the same profile and metrics, you can bet that her blood pressure and cholesterol would have been monitored breathlessly, with Plavix being thrown around like candy. But despite the fact that heart disease is the single biggest killer of women, more than all forms of cancer combined, 6 out of 10 women consider breast cancer to be the biggest threat to their health (compared to 1 in 10 who most fear CVD.) And while cardiovascular disease has claimed the lives of more women than men each year since 1984, conventional wisdom maintains that heart attacks are a uniquely male phenomenon. The same ignorance persists within the medical community: studies show the majority of doctors are unaware of the primacy of cardiovascular risks among their female patients, and worse, less than half of women report their physicians ever having talked to them about reducing their chance of heart disease.

Thanks to the efforts of the Susan G. Komen Foundation and others with their pink ribbons, cancer walks, and frisky facebook campaigns, pap smears and mammograms are the beginning and end of most discussions of women’s health. They should be commended for that, and I’m certain they have saved countless sons from feeling compelled to pen this sort of piece. As the husband of a cancer survivor, I don’t discount the importance of early detection and aggressive treatment through awareness and empowerment. And as a lobbyist I could never begrudge such an enormously effective advocacy campaign. But with the multi-billion-dollar cancer colossus sucking up all of the proverbial media oxygen, this ubiquity comes at the expense of the medical realities of heart risk among women. Health risks need to be communicated and appreciated on their merits, not based on fickle whims or the latest vanity projects.

While I write this with a heavy heart, I know my mom is now in a better place. And I take comfort in the fact that moments before her own heart gave out, she was able to hear the heart beat of her unborn grandson for the first time. But as mothers day takes on a new meaning this year, I will be taking this opportunity to exhort all of the women in my life to get their hearts checked out, and I hope others will do the same.