My 365

365 Days of Praise: Day #6

You’re probably looking at the picture to the left and thinking “Huh? How does that have anything to do with praise?”  Well, bear with me… I promise it has everything to do with praise.

You see, today is my hubby’s birthday.  But not just any birthday.  Today he is 40.  And it’s not just that it’s a milestone birthday– this is his first birthday since he had a major heart attack back in November. I haven’t really blogged about it yet… now seems as good a time as any.

He had been on a 3 or 4 day trip (I can’t remember the exact number of days) for work.  We talked everyday, several times a day actually.  He never mentioned that he wasn’t ‘feeling’ well.  He came home late Friday night (or maybe it was early Saturday morning… these details are trumped by the events that happened next).  Our day went pretty much as usual.  Late Saturday night, he said something about his arms hurting– and that it had happened on Thursday too.  It was a strange hurt he said… hurting from  his arm pits down to about his elbows, in both arms.  And it wasn’t any kind of pain he’d felt before.  He thought maybe he’d strained his arm muscles, and I agreed.  We both eventually fell asleep.

The next morning we were getting ready to go to my Mom’s to pick up the kids (they spent the weekend with my parents).  He started hurting again, enough that he didn’t know if he wanted to go.  I didn’t want to leave him home alone.  So we loaded up and left.  A few minutes down the road he began hurting even worse.  I knew it had to be pretty bad just from the expression on his face.  It was giving me the impression that we should probably go to the ER but he’s a hard headed man and I didn’t think he’d agree.  I mentioned it anyway.  He agreed.  I knew at that moment that it was worse than he was letting on.

We went straight to the ER and he was taken immediately to a room.  They don’t take these kinds of pains lightly.  The doctor was wonderful– he asked a million questions and did a million things.  He mentioned a couple things we could be dealing with, angina being one of them, but said we’d know more after he ran a few tests.  Meanwhile, hubs was given nitro and was being monitored, constantly.  After about half an hour (but it felt like half a day) the doc came in with the results.  “You have had a heart attack.”  Hubs and I looked at each other, then hubs looked at the doctor and said “What?”  We were shocked to say the least.  He was only 39 years old, had just turned 39 a few months prior.  He was too young to have a heart attack.

The seriousness of the situation really hit home when the ER doc told us hubs was being air lifted to the main medical center– where the cardiac wing was– rather than going by ambulance.  I slipped outside long enough to make a couple calls (my parents, his parents) and then fell to pieces.  All I could think was “God please don’t take him away from me.  I can’t make it without him.”

I stayed with him until the helicopter arrived, then went outside to watch as they loaded him up.  (I knew I was looking at an hour before I’d arrive at the hospital they were taking him too, so I just stood there and watched, sort of like time was standing still and nothing else was going on around me.)  There were all sorts of things going through  my head… all the worst naturally, then everything contradicting all the worst.  My mind was a jumbled mess of confusion, anxiousness, and fear.

The flight took about half an hour… I arrived about half an hour later.  (I was so upset, my Mom came to the ER to ride with me to the hospital.  I love my Mom.)  They had him in the CCU (critical care unit) and to my surprise, let me go straight back to see him.  He was being prepped for a heart cath.  I stayed with him until it they came for him.  I’m not entirely sure how long the cath took (time seemed to drag) but I finally got a call from the doctor that I could come on back again.  He was groggy, but cracking jokes.  He’d been cracking jokes since the ER.  I think it helped him deal with his own fear.

The final analysis was that there were two blockages, and they were going in with stents.  In the end, they used four stents… two for each blockage.  He was put in a regular room a couple days later, then released the next day with a stack of prescriptions and strict instructions.  And a new diagnosis… heart disease.  He survived the heart attack.  He survived the slew of medications they pumped into his system to keep his heart from stopping (one of which I had to sign a release of liability for because it, alone, could have killed him… a small chance, but still a chance).  He survived the heart cath, and the stents.  He was coming HOME!  THANK YOU GOD!

Backing up… the first night he spent in CCU, I came home.  I was only able to see him every four hours, and not at all between 10 pm and 6 am.  Instead of sleeping in the waiting room with the 900 other people there (and their flu season germs) I went home.  I slept on the couch.  I couldn’t bring myself to sleep in our bed… alone.  Even though I’d done it many times before, when he was away working.  It was different this time.  The possibility of losing him, for good, had been all too real just a few hours earlier.  The thought of sleeping in our bed, every night, without him… was too much.  The couch was where I wanted to be.  I slept about 3 hours, off and on.  At 4:30 am, I left and made the hour drive back to the hospital.  I was ready to see him, and couldn’t get there fast enough.

I think his homecoming was more exciting than our wedding day!  And every day since has been like the first day our honeymoon… well, plus an argument here and there…lol.  I’ve heard people say before that you never realize how much someone means to you until you almost lose them… I believe it now!  I never realized just how deep my love for him was until I was faced with the very real possibility of losing him.  The whole ordeal really strengthened our relationship, and our love for one another.  He is the man I will spend the rest of this life with… and I am so thankful to God for him.

(by the way– the picture is of the card I gave him for his birthday)