October...

Dear Blog,  I've been avoiding you.  October is a month I have not wanted to think about - but as historians have been known to say, even bad experiences must be recorded, or the lessons learned are lost and forgotten - so - I guess sufficient time has passed that I can be a little objective about it...

We were looking forward to October, as we always do, after the scorching heat of summer, finally - some relief.  We were also excited about conference weekend, and a chance to relax and be taught by church leaders in the comfort of home.  That Saturday, (Oct. 4th, to be exact,) Wayland had to work, so I puttered around the house, getting ready for Sunday. 
As I watched the second session, I started to feel a sense of foreboding, that got stronger and stronger as the session went on - I started to look more closely at each of the church leaders, to see if any of them looked particularly unhealthy - thinking that maybe I was feeling a warning of some kind that something would happen to one of them...

By the time the session ended, I was feeling really anxious, and pretty depressed - so I did what I always do in those situations - I put on a funny movie, and drug out the craft stuff.  
When Wayland rushed in from work later that evening, he got after me a bit, because I wasn't watching the priesthood session, as we had talked about earlier.  I wasn't really keen on it, feeling like I was, but I kept that to myself, because hubby really doesn't believe in things like "women's intuition."  So, of course, being the lovely wife that I am, I snapped at him, grumbled a bit - but changed the station.

The priesthood session was really good, as it always is, and I even served hubby a piece of pie afterward. (Pie after this session is a family tradition that goes way back.)  ...But he didn't eat all of it because he was exhausted and not feeling up to par...  We settled in and went to bed.

At 4:00 am, I was awakened by Wayland crouching over the bed, saying, "you need to take me to the hospital - NOW!"  I could tell by his demeanor that he was serious, so I fairly flew out of bed, and scrambled to get dressed.  I grabbed my purse and shoes, and even though he got after me for taking the time, I had him take some aspirin and one of my nitroglycerin tablets.  (Which, they told us later, is what saved him - hooray, I saved his life!)

We took off down the road, and approached the light, which had turned red - I slowed to stop, but he said "just go!"  So, looking around and seeing that no one else was crazy enough to be out on the road at that hour, I sailed through it...  We flew down the road - granny can drive fast when she's highly motivated - hubby opening the door to throw up every so often.  I took him to the closest hospital which was Centennial Hills.  (I would regret that choice several times over the next few days.) 
Being the only ones in the ER at the time, they got him into a cubicle fairly quickly.

I don't know how she knew it, but the charge nurse asked us if we were LDS - when we told her that we were, she offered to have her husband and her son come and give him a blessing.  Of course, we jumped at that - we were pretty scared!  About a half hour later, two gentlemen showed up, a little rumpled looking, but somewhat awake - and did give him that blessing, a comfort and relief to both of us.  We found out later, that the son had just been ordained an elder to serve a mission, and that Wayland was his first blessing ever.  Kind of neat...  Anyway,  they did some blood work,  got him stabilized, and scheduled an angiogram for the AM, so I went home to get some sleep.

I did sleep a little, but the more I tossed and turned, and the more awake I became, I just felt so afraid - if anything happened to him, I just didn't think I could handle it - emotionally, or physically, having heart problems myself. 

As I let people know what had happened, I got so many texts that I was late getting back to the hospital.  Wayland had let his family know, and I got a text from his sister asking if I needed her to be there for me.  ( It was kind of weird because that was something that her mother would have said if she were still here.)  I told her at first that I couldn't ask her to do that, but as I dressed and got ready to go back to the hospital I texted her - "to heck with that, how soon can you get here?" 
When I got to the hospital, they moved him to a room.  He was still in a lot of pain, and had motion sickness so bad that even moving his bed made him sick to his stomach.  We were told that the test wouldn't happen until later in the day, so I ran home for some breakfast (and to catch what I could of the morning session of conference.)  It's all such a blur - I remember it being good, but I can't tell you anything that was said...

That's pretty much how the day went - running back & forth to the hospital, keeping the family updated via text, and waiting for something to happen.  Later that afternoon, I got a text from Shanna saying "we're here - how do we get to the hospital?"  We weren't even sure they were coming, and here they were.  (Shanna and Janet.)  In the meantime,  our daughter, Melissa, had arranged to leave and come down too.  When the people at her work found out she was going, they excused Jennifer to come with her.  A definite blessing, but all of a sudden I had a house full!  It was a god-send to have them there though, to keep me busy, positive, and feeling supported.  I am so thankful for family!

As hospitals are, there was a lot of waiting involved - they did blood tests, x-rays and finally an angiogram.  As it turned out, he had 2 major arteries that were blocked - one 100% and the other 99%.  They all just shook their heads and said he was lucky to be alive!

  They did a stent on the artery that was 100% closed, and had him wait a day before doing the other.  Centenial Hills is a secondary hospital, which means the doctors had to do all their surgeries at a different one before they came to do what was needed for hubby - that's the reason for my regretting taking him there.  I felt like he was on the back burner the whole time.  There was just so much waiting involved.  But he had some really awesome nurses who put up with him, cared for him, and kept him entertained.  We couldn't have asked for better nurses.  All in all, he spent 5 days in the hospital - and came out feeling better than he had in ages.  His sisters left on Thursday, giving us a couple of days alone with our daughters, which was nice.
Meanwhile, hubby's brother Dennis worried so much about him, that he had to come down and see him for himself - so he and his wife came and spent a couple of days.  (A real blessing, because it would have been so hard to keep Wayland from over doing if he hadn't had him there to give him something else to focus on.)

It was a crazy month  - who could have forseen that those foreshaddowing feelings I had were for someone in my own household!

 Lots of company, lots to worry about, but lots to be thankful for too.  Wayland had his follow up check up a week later - and the doctor released him to go back to work a week earlier than he should have because he wanted to go on vacation.  (I'm still fuming over that one!)
But, he is steadily improving, and doing well.  

Thanks be to God.