As I typed this post I began to realize that it is more a journal entry. I want to remember some of what happened this week. Be forewarned, the post is long...
Praise God! Os's dad is coming home from the hospital today and is on his way to making a complete recovery from the massive heart attack he suffered this past Sunday.
It has been quite a week. Our family was piled in the car on the way to a our friends' daughter's christening when we got the call from Os's brother that their dad had collapsed and been rushed to the hospital. Os and I jumped on a plane to St. Louis.
Eventually we learned the story: last Sunday morning Os's dad had gone to the gym to go for a swim and collapsed on the pool deck due to a complete blockage of one of the most important arteries, the LAD. A Physician's Assistant "happened" to be taking a cardio class and heard the emergency announcement. She rushed to the pool deck and took over for the person who had started CPR.
We're still a little unclear about how long CPR was performed before the paramedics were called, but we do know that they came 5 minutes after the call. It took 4 shocks from the paddles to restart Dad's heart and he was without a heart beat for almost 20 minutes. Thankfully, he did arrive at the ER with a pulse and was rushed to surgery.
Two stints later, he was recovering in the ICU. When all us kids arrived at the hospital at midnight, Dad was in an induced coma and hypothermic state. Cooling the body to about 92 degrees has been found to significantly help prevent neurological damage. It felt very surreal to see someone you love in a coma with a breathing tube in, half a dozen other machines attached, and so cold to the touch.
I am so thankful I was able to be there with Os, his mom, his brothers and my sister-in-law. We took turns being in the room with him over the next several days. Thank you to all the friends who helped with the kids so I could be there with the family.
On Monday the doctors told us they would start rewarming him that evening (a process that would take about 12 hours). Once his body temperature was back up to normal they would stop the sedative.
This was the beginning of the waiting game. The doctors expected him to come out of the coma sometime between Tuesday evening and Friday. Only when all the sedative had worn off would we know the extent of the damage to his brain. It could have been anything from complete recovery to the horrible prospect of him never waking up.
Tuesday morning, Os's mom, our friend, Linda Wuetrich, and I were getting ready to go back to the hospital when I got a call from Os that Dad was starting to wake up. We didn't want to give Mama any false hope, but we did want to try and move her to the hospital more quickly. Then I got a text: He's breathing on his own.
That text really got us into high gear, we told Mama about the news and went and woke up my brother-in-law and sister-in-law who had only been a sleep for few hours after spending the night with Dad.
One funny thing that happened is that as we all piled into two cars, Linda Wuetrich and I ended up in a car by ourselves and realized as we were pulling out of the driveway that we were the only two who didn't know how to get to the hospital. We felt a little sheepish as we called the other car for directions.
When we arrived at the hospital there was a flurry of activity around Dad's room. The nurses, doctors and residents could not believe that Dad was coming out so fast. One resident said, "This is a miracle."
They took out the breathing tube and removed the EEG (which monitors the brain) that morning. Dad seemed to recognize each family member he saw when he woke up. He dozed on and off all day and by the afternoon he was speaking to us a little. The sedative was so strong that each time he woke up after a 3-10 minute cat nap it was like he was waking up for the first time. There was always one of us nearby to hold his hand and tell him where he was and that he was going to be okay.
It was strange because we were all jubilant that he was okay, but from his perspective he was just finding out that he had had a heart attack and he had to find out about 100 times in one day.
He kept progressing more and more and there were so many sweet and funny moments. Someone coming out of anesthesia can be quite amusing.
I have a good friend who is an ER nurse and she thought long and hard about being an ICU nurse. I remember her wondering how well she would do dealing with the families of the patients. For the record, I think she would have been awesome. I did wonder, though, how the nurses felt about having us around. We always had one or two people in the room with him and several more people in the waiting room. As the immediate family we felt part of our job was to buffer him from well meaning friends who wanted to see him.
I think the night nurses were thankful we always had someone there since Dad tried to get of bed almost every time he woke up. There was an alarm on the bed to alert the nurse, but I think it helped to have one of us there to say, "Hi Dad, lay down and get some rest."
There is one nurse I am certain is glad we are no longer in the ICU. Monday night we ended up asking for a new nurse. It was interesting because all of us kids were feeling uneasy about the nurse but we came to our opinions independently. Realizing we were all feeling the same way we decided to speak to the head nurse and ask for new one. We are so glad we did. We were very happy with all the nurses we got after that. One great line from that time was Os jokingly saying, "In my professional opinion as a winemaker..."
I loved being at a Catholic hospital. It was really reassuring to have the scriptures on the walls and to have a nun come and pray with us.
Some poignant moments I have from this time are:
1. Mama sliding Dad's wedding ring onto her necklace
2. Crashing into a hug with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law when we learned how long Dad had gone without a heartbeat
3. Kneeling beside Dad as he received Communion
4. Hearing Dad tell Mama, "You look so pretty."
Dad, we love you so much! We are so thankful we get to have you with us longer. You have a great purpose for being on this earth and your life is a testimony that Jesus is the Great Physician. OXOXOX
