Day 07

Life can change in an instant, in a breath, in an hour, in a day. I woke up this morning not knowing with certainty what would happen, or how the day would play out, given the events from the night before.

I received a phone call from momma that daddy called her and needed to be taken to the emergency room, the nurse felt he was having a heart-attack. I could barely understand her, and when I hung up I questioned did I really hear her right?

I quickly looked at my husband, grabbed my purse, my cell phone and yelled as I began running down our over warn carpeted steps daddy's having a heart-attack I need to go help him for momma.

I got in the van, started it up and away we went. I looked over and my son was beside me putting on his flip-flops. Well I knew I wasn't alone and needed to keep my composure. I didn't even put my seat belt on, went to the stop-sign turned left, and sped to their home within four seconds. I got out ran to the door (against Dr.s orders of running) and tried to open the door. Locked. I fumbled through the four keys on the keyring trying to get the right key into the keyhole. I turned that key every way but the right way, finally the three locks unlocked I was able to get through the front door. I yelled out Daddy to him. He answered I'm in my room. There to the left of the stairway, down a small way, was the room they dubbed the "computer" room. Dad had an over sized chair, his large TV to watch his sports, his computer table, his laptop and his desktop in there. He was watching his soap. As I had walked in the door I yelled to my son, grab the kids (aka 9 week old brother and sister Siamese mix kittens) and put them in their room upstairs. He did so taking large steps missing others to get to the top quickly.

Daddy in his over sized chair, looking comfortable and not a care in the world looked shocked to see me. I asked why wasn't he ready. He said he wanted to wait until momma came home and momma could take him. He wanted to be with momma. I explained momma called me and asked me to get him, we would meet her at the ER. I managed to remember getting his meds, and his cell phone before we got out the door and headed to the hospital.

While on our way I asked him questions of his pain number, where the pain was located, kind of pain, how long ago did it start, where did it start, did he have this symptom or that and then it was time to get out of the car and go into the ER. He didn't want me to drop him off and park the car he wanted to walk with me in. Choose my battles I thought. Okay. I parked as close to the door as possible and got him inside. From there talking to triage nurses, intake, admission, cardiologists, Dr.'s and nurses they began drawing blood samples, EKG's, heart monitor, temp, blood pressure, questions more questions, chest x-ray, more questions, more blood samples for them to come in and say you've had a heart-attack. The EKG is reading okay now but you did produce elevated Triponin levels.

Three hours later we were told he would be kept overnight for them to perform and angioplasty in the morning to find out where we needed to go from there.

This morning was a rush of dropping one child off at school, running an errand that couldn't wait and getting up to the hospital. Going to his room, I found they had already taken him down to start the procedure. I met him just before him going in.

An hour and ten minutes later his doctor came to let us know one artery was 99% blocked and a second artery is 60% blocked. A stint was placed in the 99% blocked one and that the one that is 60% blocked would have to wait until it reached 70-75% before they could place a stint into it. He cannot have the surgery that was scheduled for December 18th, and needs to be on blood thinner for one year before another surgery can be performed.

I write this to remind myself that in a blink of an eye I can lose someone I love. If I do not care for myself I will not be here for my loved ones when someone is needed. I want to be here and I do not want a premature death.