Stacy Gruver was just your average secretary, except she wasn’t so average if you didn’t know the first interesting thing about her. Stacy had ventricular fibrillation arrhythmia. Every day after a hard days work, Stacy comes home to her teenage daughter who moans and complains when the world is not handed to her. Stacy’s brain explodes every time she hears her voice.  With her irregular heartbeat comes risks, one of those risks being death. On this of many days, Stacy was especially tired. She had been rearranging her office earlier that day. When she walked into her house she heard a grunt come from the living room couch.
“MOM THERE IS NO FOOD IN THE FRIDGE!” she hollered.
“I promise I’m going shopping tomorrow. There’s no need to worry, we will order in tonight.” Stacy replied, trying to hide how exhausted and fed up she already was with Kelsey. She would never tell her daughter how she felt because she didn’t want her to think she was being rude. Even though it is a mother’s job to put her daughter in her place, Kelsey already gave Stacy a hard enough time as is. It was another night that Stacy’s husband, Brad, worked the night shift at the office, which meant more work for Stacy. As she kicked her shoes off and finally got a chance to sit on the couch, she decided to start researching cures for the heart condition she had been living with for years. She came across an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator that could change her entire life. Stacy would drop everything and make an appointment if it was not for the cost and Kelsey’s needy self. The surgery to implant an ICD ranges at a cost of 30,000-50,000 dollars. That is equivalent to what Stacy makes in one year of being a secretary. Stacy decided to talk to Kelsey about getting a part-time job as a cashier on the weekends.
“WHO IS SUPPOSED TO CLEAN MY ROOM? WHO IS SUPPOSED TO DO MY LAUNDRY? WHO IS SUPPOSED TO MAKE ME BREAKFAST LUNCH AND DINNER?” Kelsey screamed at her mother.
“I am tired of you yelling at me, Kelsey. Your mother needs surgery. It’s hard for me to do anything around here anymore and it does not help when all you do is sit around watching TV and raiding the entire snack cabinet.” Stacy answered, finally standing her ground. Stacy grabbed her laptop and decided to fill out an application for the local grocery store. The next morning Stacy woke up in a sweat. Her heart was beating slow one minute and racing the next. She was in excruciating pain. She yelled out for Kelsey, who of course was still sound asleep. After 20 minutes of gasping for air, Stacy fell backward unconscious.
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    Stacy awoke in the hospital with no one by her side. She assumed Kelsey had gotten bored and left to go watch what she called “quality tv” (Netflix). The nurse walked in, checked her pulse, added a higher dosage of whatever drug was being distributed throughout her body, and left without any greeting. She felt as though people were living their lives as if she was not there. She fell asleep and woke up again to now find Kelsey and her husband at her side staring at her like some sort of foreign substance. The doctor walked in and spoke to them, but not to her. He stated that she had gone into cardiac arrest and that she had been in a coma for a week. They nodded their heads like they heard the words a million times. He spoke again, but this time in a louder tone as if he was talking to her as well.
“We have reason to believe that your wife can hear us talking and see us moving around her but she cannot move her body in a way to respond. We have done a series of tests over the course of the week and it shows significant brain function is still available. This gives us hope that she will wake up soon,” he said, “But with that being said, she may need a series of surgeries in order to recover her cardiac state and better her life functions.” She was worried she may never wake up again, but most importantly she was worried about the risks and the cost of the ICD surgery she researched the night before she went unconscious.
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The next morning, or so she thought the next morning, she woke up with feeling in her limbs and a pain in her chest. She sensed the tube down her throat and started to cough. The doctors and nurses rushed in to alleviate the pain Stacy was feeling. She knew she woke up by the look on her husband and daughters face, the look of hope.
“Hi, sweetie! How are you feeling?” Brad asked lovingly. “Grossssssssss……” Kelsey whined. Stacy held a thumbs up, showing everyone in the room her body was responding. The doctor arrived soon after Stacy awoke. He checked her vitals, updated her charts, and made sure Stacy was as comfortable as could be. She was told she would have to stay in the hospital for the next 24 hours to be monitored and examined until she could be sent home. The recovery time for the ICD surgery was four to six weeks. Stacy knew she would be in a lot of pain for those long weeks, but above all of that was having to deal with Kelsey. She couldn’t ask Brad to take time off from work, especially since she already spent her year's salary on the surgery. She never thought how hard taking care of a teenage daughter would be. As she and Brad conversated about the topic, they concluded that they would have a serious discussion with Kelsey about how she needed to start doing things for herself.
“We won’t always be there to do everyday tasks for you, Kelsey. And with your mother sick, it is very important you learn these things.” Brad explained. Kelsey nodded her head in agreement, the first time the couple had seen in a long while.
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    The first week of recovery flew by for Stacy. Her pain was minimal and the meds were doing their job. Kelsey was sleeping all day on weekends, but she was managing to go to school on a daily basis and asking for lunch money in a polite way. After the second week was when the recovery got rough. She was put on a lower dosage of her pain meds and was taking Ibuprofen alongside them. Even with all of the medications, she was still finding it hard to move around the house. Kelsey was helping out a lot with the dishes and laundry that Stacy hardly had to worry about it. She knew after the few weeks Kelsey would go back to her old ways, but she was cherishing the good conversations she had with her daughter without all the yelling and screaming she used to get for just asking her daughter how her day at school was. On the very last week of recovery, Stacy could move around the house with no problems. Kelsey had finally gotten her driver’s permit and asked her mother to teach her how to drive. Although Stacy wasn’t yet authorized to drive a car, she insisted she’d teach her right away. She realized she finally could sense something other than a headache in her daughter.
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    Stacy and her daughter became very close after Kelsey witnessed her mother in a coma. She realized that life is precious and that she should cherish the time she had left with her mother. The biggest setback in Stacy’s life was her heart condition and her daughter, but now with that constant pain alleviated, Kelsey is her whole world.