Craziness

The following was written on November 1, 2013.

Hello everyone!

It has been way toooo long since my last post. Two weeks and I haven’t had a minute of down time. The first week after my last post I remember I caught the “crud” from one of the kids at school and for about two weeks I didn’t feel much like doing anything, so when I got home from work that is exactly what I did…nothing!

Just as I began to feel better, I got home from work on Wednesday, the 23rd of October to hear my husband telling me that his left arm and chest felt like he had strained a muscle. Red flags went up and bells started ringing and I told him he should call his cardiologist. Of course, being a man his response was, “Oh, it’s not my heart! I played racquet ball three times today.” Instead of insisting, I decided to AVOID an argument and went about my routine business. I went to bed at my normal hour, 8:00 p.m., and fell asleep quickly because I was e-x-h-a-u-s-t-e-d. The next thing I remember is my husband waking me at 1:00 a.m. on Thursday morning telling me he thought I should take him to the e.r. In one motion, I hopped out of bed, grabbed the phone and said, “I am calling 911!” Again he argued, because he felt it didn’t warrant an ambulance ride and “I don’t want to pay for that!” This time I didn’t listen, and I told him that I didn’t care if insurance paid for it or not, I was calling. Paramedics and an ambulance arrived shortly after and they did an EKG with no significant signs of a heart attack, but they did recommend he go into the hospital. They told us the ambulance could either take him, or they felt it was safe enough for me to drive him. They said there was no need to “speed” to the hospital. Well….I got him to the hospital, and I did speed. What do they know! There was no one on the road at 1:00 a.m. 🙂

Once there they e.r. personnel did the routine blood work, etc. that is done on people who might be experiencing a heart attack with no significant results. They couldn’t tell by the blood work if he was having a heart attack or not, so the recommendation was to spend the night in the hospital.

We got him settled in a room and at around 3:00 a.m. I drove home, arranged for a sub for me the next day and did something that looked like lesson plans for the school secretary to give to the sub. I put a bra on…yes, I left home without my bra. That’s not something I usually do (after two children and turning 56) LOL! , and I headed back to the hospital to be by his side.

Later that morning, they took my husband into the heart catheterization lab. Eight years ago he had a stent put into one of his arteries, and they were thinking he might need more. We weren’t prepared for what they were about to tell us when the procedure was over. They said he would need to have at least triple by-pass surgery, if not quadruple by-pass because everything, including the stent, was plugged, and they would be scheduling him for the next day. Later in the day they told him they had rescheduled him for the following morning (Saturday). At around 6:30 p.m., I finally made it home, arranged for a substitute the next day, and fell into bed. I slept like a dead person.

Friday morning as I was getting ready to go back to the hospital, my husband called and said, “They changed their minds again. They are gonna do it today at around 10:30.” I was half ready to leave the house when his call arrived so I was back at the hospital by 8:30. They finally wheeled him into surgery at 2:30 p.m.. By 6:30 p.m. Gary’s quadruple by-pass surgery was over and he was moved to ICU. He spent 12 hours in ICU before they moved him back to the cardiac ward.

My husband returned home on Tuesday and is doing well. Thank the Lord! He still needs help with a lot of things like putting on shoes and socks, and he still can’t lift his arms over his head, and whenever he picks up something like his heart pillow, or a magazine, or his baseball cap, gravity ALWAYS manages to take over and I have to pick it up for him (more of a hassle for me). But for the most part, he is doing well one week after his surgery. He tries to get his little 5 minute walks in 4 times each day, and he tires quickly and gets frustrated, but I remind him that he had major surgery only a week ago. When my dad had bypass surgery over 10 years ago, I don’t remember him recovering so well. He was older when he had the surgery, and he had a lot of other health issues. I remind my husband that things could always be worse.

So…there you have it…my life the last few weeks. I took the entire week off from work this week to stay home with him. I’ll be going back to work on Monday, and I’m a little concerned about leaving him alone all day, but I think he should be okay. He is able to get himself to the bathroom, and able to get his own food and drink. I just hope he doesn’t get a bright idea into his head and over do it while I am at work. You know how men are! On his first day home from the hospital he got it into his head he was going to go for a 20 minute walk. He figured out quickly that wasn’t going to happen.

The following was written today, November 9, 2013.

Well, I went back to work on Monday. Or should I say, I was anxious to get back to work on Monday. Everyone, including students, was pleasant. All were concerned about our life events of the previous two weeks. The kids were kind, and broke me in gently. By Tuesday morning at 4:45 a.m., you could say I was “over” getting back to work! LOL! Anyway, here is the card I promised.