This past year has been eventful to say the least. I suppose I could say that our family definitely had it’s share of bad, but then again, I suppose I could turn that around to say that our family definitely had it’s share of good.
January 6, 2019, was one of the most terrifying days of my life. I say “one of” because there were plenty more terrifying days ahead. You see, on that day, my Dad had a major STEMI (ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction). A major heart attack. My Mom had called to tell me that he was having chest pain and they were headed to the hospital. I left my house along with my daughter and headed to the hospital too. My brother (who had a heart attack a few years back) was with them. I arrived at the hospital just a few minutes before they did and told the receptionist that my Dad was on his way and he was definitely having a heart attack. They were ready and waiting when my Dad arrived. He was gray. He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t walk. The ER staff worked swiftly. As soon as they hooked him up to the EKG in triage, they knew. His BP was astoundingly high, so high that the two nurses that were in the room stated they had never seen a BP that high. They immediately took him to get an angiogram. As they wheeled Dad away I went to the waiting room to inform my family what was going on.
We ran through the possible scenarios and thought “we can handle this, they’ll probably put in some stints and all will be well.” Not so. Within minutes, we were informed that Dad was on his way to surgery. He would have quadruple coronary artery bypass that night. From the time he arrived at the hospital to the time he was in surgery was 19 minutes!
We were all pretty much in shock. My Dad was such a strong man. Strong in health, strong in faith. This man was an inspiration to so many people because of his unfailing commitment to serving our Lord through Missouri Baptist Disaster Relief. My Dad and my Mom have served for years with Disaster Relief. They worked hard. We’re talking about cleaning up after Hurricane Katrina, cleaning up debris from numerous tornadoes, cleaning up after floods. So much hard physical labor. Not to mention the emotional labor. They have witnessed the horrors of the aftermath of these natural disasters. But they have also “witnessed” to so many people by sharing God’s word. I couldn’t understand how my Dad could be having open-heart surgery.
The waiting room was full of people and prayer. The surgery took hours. I always knew that my Mom was a strong woman but this was hard on her, but she seemed to be holding up fairly well. So we thought. Dad made it through the surgery but wasn’t recovering like we had hoped. We expected him to bounce right back, he was so strong. On the third day after surgery, Dad really took a turn for the worse. My Mom refused to leave the hospital. She wanted to be there for my Dad. As we were trying to sleep in the ICU waiting room, I heard my mother breathing rather rapidly. I was half asleep and opened my eyes as she was walking out into the hall. She was holding her right arm as if it was asleep. I went after her and she exclaimed that her medicine was causing her arm to hurt and she had appointment to see her doctor but canceled because of the circumstances with Dad. I told her we needed to go to the ER and she refused and seemed to be fine within a few minutes. She very sternly asked me not to tell anyone about the event. She has a way of always putting others first.
Of course, I told my brothers and sister what had happened! We were not going to leave her alone anyway but now we all were to keep an extra watch on her.
Finally, on Day 4 after the heart attack, my Dad was being moved out of ICU to a regular room at the hospital. My Mom, brothers and sister took the elevator and I decided to take the steps. (you know, for the exercise, after all, my family has a history of heart disease!) When the elevator door opened I could see my Mom holding her arm again. My siblings said the arm pain and rapid breathing had started on the way up. Mom did not want us to say anything. She was too worried about Dad. So, of course, I yelled down the hallway to a nurse! She brought a wheelchair over and we went rather swiftly to the ER. My brothers stayed with Dad and my sister and I went with Mom. Another terrifying day.
On the way down the hospital hallways, Mom said she was feeling better. She was still trying to convince us to take her back to Dad. The nurse told her that she really needed to get checked out. We thought perhaps it was just stress related. We hoped it was just stress related. They hooked her up to the EKG and the doctor said “oh my! You’re having a heart attack!”. My sister and I halfway laughed. Are you serious?! This can’t be happening. And they immediately took Mom to have an angiogram.
Then we went back to thinking about possible scenarios. They’re probably just going to place some stints and all would be fine. My siblings and I were not-so-patiently waiting when the cardiologist came out of of the angiogram procedure. He proceeded to tell us that Mom had blockage and would need coronary artery bypass surgery too. The surgery would have to wait though, her blood levels would need to improve before they could perform surgery. She would be admitted to the hospital to be monitored closely until the surgery. So, there we were, Mom on one end of the hospital floor and Dad on the other end! I imagine it was quite comical to see our family walking from one end of the hallway to the other to visit our parents!
On January 16 Mom would go on to have her open heart surgery too. The same doctor performed both of their surgeries and said this was a first for him to perform open heart surgery on a husband and wife during the same week! We joked about how my parents loved each other so much that they were literally connected by the heart.
January was definitely a challenge. There were many days that were extremely hard for both of them. They endured so much pain, not only for themselves but also for each other. But as I said before, they are strong. Physically strong and strong in faith. They pushed on, determined to get back to serving. And that’s just what they did. In March they were back on the road, this time to Nebraska to do flood clean up with Missouri Baptist Disaster Relief! And since then they have responded to many other disaster relief missions.
The rest of the year had many more physical and emotional challenges for our family. Every month seemed to give us yet another obstacle. However, 2019 also gave us many blessings! Two of those blessings were announced in 2019 and will arrive in 2020 - two new grandbabies!
Even though January was “heart” wrenching (sorry, I had to!), I feel that our family is so very blessed! You see, I could be bitter that both of my parents had heart attacks and open heart surgery or I can praise God that both of my parents SURVIVED heart attacks and open heart surgery! I choose PRAISE!
Blessings,
Debbie