I’m Still Cautious

Coupled with heart disease and an ICD (Implantable Cardiac Device, defibrillator) my fears may sound ordinary. But I am not ordinary, just ask actress/comedian Carmen Scott who addressed that very question some time ago when asked in Am I Ordinary.

I love to travel, always have. And up till my original implant in 2005 I had visited approximately thirty-eight of our states. But since then, hadn’t been any further than North Carolina in 2009 in fear of health-related concerns.

Before you judge, imagine eating a donut in your kitchen and being hit with a board from behind. Then watching that donut soar into the air only to be flung further by the ceiling fan it collides with. Yeah, sounds funny, but that jolt or shock is exactually what I feel when the device goes off. Afterwards, I do require medical attention.

I laugh now over its first discharge all those years ago. But the fear is real. Unlike Franklin Roosevelts words “Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself,” as, I know, it will go off again when needed.

Traveling backward in time to right before covid, I had just befriended a single mother with two toddlers. She appeared to manage the challenges of travel and kids rather well without showing any fears.

On permanent loan from her, is the inspiration I needed for my first trip to Boston shortly after the lifting of Covid’s restrictions.

Sure, I am still cautious but no longer fear traveling alone. While ‘Fenway Park’ had always been on my Bucket List, it no longer is. Nor is seeing Lionel Richie in concert as I did so in a subsequent visit to Beantown the following year.

Because of her strength, I’ve come to believe if something happens, it happens and there’s nothing I can do to avoid it. Whereas in the past, I was assigned to feeling if it’s going to happen let it happen near my own doctors not somewhere a thousand or more miles from home.

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overcoming fears, Casey Dacanay