Sunday, Dec. 2, 2018
When I wrote a little over a week ago, my plan was to write every week (at a minimum). I really wanted to write about all the different books I am studying and the insights I am gaining. I even wanted to write about the struggles and triumphs of trying to put those books into practice.
And then...Thanksgiving night happened.
Thanksgiving night my husband woke me up with pain in his chest and running down his left arm.
I ran him to the emergency room. He finally came home yesterday.
The first two days in the hospital was test after test after test...for a doctor to finally say the words "heart attack". Apparently, heart doctors do not like to use that phrase!
His third day was transferring from one hospital to another hospital - a bigger hospital that does bypass surgery.
His fourth day was the surgery...a quadruple bypass surgery. The surgeon doesn't actually know how many bypasses until they start the surgery. I have no idea how I feel about that. This particular surgeon did not use the lung/heart bypass machine (I think that is what it is called). He instead did something called the beat method (again, I think that is what is is called). Basically, my husband's heart continued to beat (on its own) the entire time during the operation. This is suppose to reduce the complications.
Seeing my husband right after surgery was sobering. And unnerving. And just a tiny bit scary. I am just glad we chose to not let our three children see him until he was out of the ICU.
Days five and six were spent in the ICU. A very sad place. Quiet, subdued...just a feeling of sadness and uncertainty. The nurses there are one part compassion and a whole lot of parts of tough as nails. They know what the patient must do to recover as quickly as possible - and they don't really care if you don't like it. My husband was up and walking around on day five. He had so many tubes coming out of him it looked a little like he is a one-man parade when he was walking.
To leave the ICU, my husbands oxygen levels had to be to a certain level and the tube that was draining fluids and blood from his chest had to be removed...which is to say the chest needed to be done draining.
Day seven and eight were spent in a normal hospital room. By the end of day eight, all tubes and attachments were gone except one. This one, however, was a monitor that fit into the pocket of his gown and had wires attached to plastic squares splattered all over his chest and belly. This was kind of nice because it gave my husband a lot more movability. That is not to say my husband was the most patient person during this process. He does not like to sit around doing nothing. He does not like hovering. He does not like being poked and prodded. He does not like hospitals. It was a pretty miserable experience for him...and the surgery was just adding insult to injury.
Day nine was leaving the hospital. Yay!!!! It took forever to get discharged. Again, patience was not one of my husband's virtues. (The fun of that day should be its own post - lets just say that my husband had to get nasty and tell the nurse he was going to discharge himself since the doctors couldn't be bothered to come by and sign off on his discharge...we didn't leave the hospital until almost 3pm).
The fun didn't end there...but I will leave that for another post.
I will just end with this: after spending a week driving back and forth from the hospital - balancing my time and energy between my husband and my children - I know what is important in my life. It isn't FB. It isn't this blog...or even my idea of blogging every week. It isn't how my house is decorated. It isn't what I wear. It isn't husband's job. It is simply love.
I have always said love is all that matters....now I know it is all that matters. Seeing the scar running down my husband's chest, him unresponsive to my touch and only knowing he was alive because the machines hooked up to him beeped with "life"...hit me harder than anything else I have ever been through.
I never want a day to go by that my husband and my children don't know they are the most important thing to me in my life. I have no idea how to do that. I don't know what I am going to have to change in my life, what behaviors will need to change...but change they will. One day at a time.
