We just got a call from the friend who wrote the account I sent to you (with her permission) of the experience she and her husband had on 9/11. They are the couple who live on the 26th floor of Battery Park City, and who watched the WTC burn from their window, until they fled, and watched the implosion from the street, and had to escape in the dense dust cloud.
They've both been on anti-depressants and in psychotherapy for anxiety since then. And last night, we got an email from her saying that he had had a mild heart attack.
Today the verdict is ventricular fibrillation, stress-caused. There is slight damage to the heart, but it will repair itself, apparently, if it wasn't a real heart attack. The approach of the anniversary of 9/11 is what is considered to be the cause of the stress. (J and R expect something to happen.)
My other friend, the one who's about to go to a psychopharmacologist, also lives in the city, and smelled the smoke for weeks. She has never been able to go to Ground Zero. She also expects something to happen and I'm sure that the approach of 9/11 is partly responsible for her current severe depression. |
