part 1

one happy baby - 7 weeks old

I was tempted to think the whole thing was a dream during the early morning hours on Friday.

The EKG tabs, the IV port in my arm and the fact that I was in a hospital bed convinced me otherwise.

Thursday evening Pat and I were sitting down to dinner. Homemade chicken al fredo (low fat version). We had just returned from a relaxing afternoon trip up the road to take care of a few things.

As we were watching the news. I took a bite of food. Yum. Delicious. I am such a good cook. That was my first thought. My next was, 'man does that hurt'. I set my fork down on the plate and waited for the pain to subside.

It didn't. It intensified. A crushing feeling on and in my chest. Waves of nausea. Shortness of breath.

"Honey, call 911," I said quietly, not wanting to alarm him.

"What?" he said. Not a panicky 'what' but a did -you -say -something 'what?'

It was hard for me to get much volume but I tried to say a little louder. "Call 911."

He sprang into action. I think it was the me not beingable to breathe well that motivated him. That and the fact that I rarely go to the doctor or complain about much of anything. In less than five minutes, the paramedics were at our door - even though we have no street sign and still do not show up on GPS.

I suggested that Pat call Mom and Dad, thinking that it would be better for them to hear from one of us what was happening than to see an ambulance pull up at their daughter's house and not know what was going on.

Mom and Dad came right over, the ambulance arrived. Everything was happening very fast. The paramedics came in. Three of them. One of them really liked our hardwood floors. "Those are nice floors...nice house, I really like these floors..." I hope I remembered to say thank you. I was a little distracted. Thinking you are having a heart attack tends to do that to people.

Mom and Dad stayed on the front porch. I was taken into the ambulance. They checked my vitals, asked me questions, started an IV, gave me nitroglycerin and 4 baby aspirin. (Note to self - take baby aspirin right away, before paramedics arrive). My blood pressure was 155/98 - I'm normally around 106/68. Something was going on.

While I was whisked away in the ambulance, learning the life story of my attending paramedic, an interesting scenario was taking place back at my house. The stress of what was going on caused Dad's blood sugar to drop and drop fast. He was hypoglycemic. While Pat tended to Dad (dosing him with juice), Mom, my little mommy with arthritic-to-the-point-of-needing-knee-replacement-surgery knees ran home (about 1/4 mile) to get the car for Dad.

Adrenalin is an amazing thing.

We arrived at the hospital and I was hooked up to machines and monitors. I commented to one of the nurses that the ER seemed pretty quiet. She turned to me and said, "Don't say the 'q' word!"

My bad.

The ER soon became a crazy place, filled with all kinds of people. Heart attacks, gastric distress, people obviously injured in accidents (there is a motorcycle rally here this weekend)...etc.

The nurse who warned me about using the 'q' word periodically indicated to me that this was my fault. Maybe it is just me, but I don't think you should accuse someone who may be having a heart attack of jinxing the emergency room.

As soon as I was stabilized, I was moved from the ER into the hallway. All preliminary tests indicated that my heart was fine, but they wanted to admit me so I could have a nuclear stress test the next morning.

I remained in the hallway for about 4 hours before being admitted to my room. Gives you time to think and pray.

And think a lot about that cute little baby boy pictured above. And the meaning of life and all that stuff. Pat was by my side through it all, thinking his own thoughts.

What would the coming day bring?