My Dad's Heart Attack

Okay, this is really long, I posted it on my blog, noted it on facebook and printed it in my journal (where more personal notes are added to it…) I don’t expect a lot of people to read it but it was nice getting out all the details, especially since I’ve told this story so many times, I’m not sure who has heard what pieces, so hopefully this fills in some blanks… It is truly an amazing story and we are so blessed it happened the way it did. Today is Day 7 in the CCU (Coronary Care Unit (basically ICU for heart patients)) at Los Robles hospital in Thousand Oaks, California... my hometown. I'm writing this as my dad is taking a nap, I am right by his bed listening and watching all his monitors, I made the nurses teach me what all the numbers mean so I can be more of a help if one of the alerts goes off. My sister, who has been with me here since the day of the heart attack, left this morning so I am here by myself for the first time and will be with him until Feb. 12 when I fly back to Logan. It is a very scary thing, the CCU is full of… people? umm… very sick people. There. That’s better. It is a site for sure. Just in order to get in you have to call from another room outside the double doors and give them a four digit family pass code for the receptionist to even talk to the nurse taking care of you loved one… then they have to see who it is and give the okay. Ug. Okay, I suppose the best place to start is the beginning. My Papa had massive back surgery two weeks ago. They cut a foot and a half long incision in his back and fused two of his vertebras together and screwed some others in position realigning his back… it was quite the process. How does this relate? Well, before he had his surgery he had a blessing. Long story short, without getting into too many personal details, the blessing said he would be alright and the surgery would be successful… the peculiar part was that it talked more about the recent future… and how his posterity would be blessed because of his faith, testimony and righteous living with miracles in the near future. So for the past couple weeks he was worried thinking “Which kid?? What is going to happen??”So my Dad woke up Saturday morning January 31, 2009 and literally thought to himself “What a beautiful day! I can’t believe people are going to die today and they don’t even know it...” He was playing church basketball (I know right), just after the game he began feeling a deep pressure on his chest. He thought he was just tired so he went out to his truck… that was four rows back in the parking lot to keep it from getting dings from other cars… to lye down… BY HIMSELF! Ug. The pressure never went away and got worse; it felt as if an elephant was sitting on his chest. He couldn’t get relief and started vomiting. He then realized he needed help so he started honking his horn, this continued for a good ten minutes and no one heard, he tried walking but took two steps and realized he wouldn’t make it and fell back and caught himself on the door. He took some deep breaths and somehow threw the truck into drive and drove right up to the front doors of the church. At this point he thought he was just dehydrated and needed water (ha.) so he stumbled in and leaned on the water fountain, drank and splashed water on himself. It didn’t help. Someone finally came out from the gym and saw him, his first human contact in a half hour. He asked them to call the paramedics; he finally realized something was seriously wrong. In the ambulance they gave him squirts of nitro… he knew it was a heart attack. Okay… so my dad ran two marathons last year, eats well, is 53, and is in the best shape of his life… what the heart attack?? Oh wait, my nana and all of her brothers have had heart attacks, one even died. Literally, none of us have ever considered this, we always check “no” to everything when we go to the doctor, it just never sank in that one branch of our family tree has a history of heart disease. Ug. This is when the miracles start…Two days before, Dr. Goel switched his schedule to be on call that weekend because he wanted to take the weekend he was scheduled for off. There are fifteen heart surgeons at Los Robles, only two can do the surgery my dad needed, instead of going in cracking the rib cage and doing open heart, they went up the groin, through an artery to the heart. The blood clot, or thrombus, was located in the Left Main aka “The Widow Maker” (I detest that nickname) which was 99% blocked, they got to it and cleared it out, putting two stents into the Circumflex and Left Interior Disending that are a bifurcation of the Left Main. He had and aortic balloon pump put in him for about three days that expanded and contracted constantly taking stress off of his struggling heart. 10-15% of his heart muscle died. In the days to come we learn that Dr. Goel was, hands down, the best man for the job. He only sees the condition that my dad had, MAYBE once a year, it’s rare, and deadly. After going in and clearing it up, Goel told us that my dad had only five more minutes to live if that, and if he had gotten another surgeon, they would have had to do open heart and it would have been to late, there was no doubt in his mind. Geez. That is so hard to hear a doctor say. They don’t sugar coat anything here! Because it took so long, the arteries backed up and started filling up the lungs up with fluid… blood that he would be coughing up for the next week and that would be coming out of his nose. It’s a terrible sight seeing your parent cough up blood… I wish that upon no one. In the CCU he developed a case of a pneumonia and an infection. His lungs went back and forth and he hasn’t gone without oxygen.It has been 9 days in the CCU now. He is still getting breathing treatments every 4 hours. Taking short walks with the nurses and constantly on oxygen. I have learned how to read and understand what all the numbers mean on the monitors, his heart rate, blood pressure and mean, oxygen level, respiratory readings, and more… it’s been an amazing learning experience.Let me tell you my list of favorite nurses… from favorite to least… 1. Connie- simply amazing2. Sue- hillarious3. Barbara- large and in charge4. Kim- simple and efficient5. Jeanne- name close to mine6. Taran- full of information7. Karen- meh8. Victoria- ew9. Evil Asian- gr10. Ken- bah!!! (seriously, just look at the name…)I hated Ken. I have reasons for all the above…and I’ll be glad to tell them to you if you are curious one day… Connie actually gave me a stethoscope so I can listen to my dad’s heart and lungs (she showed me how) AND a flashlight pen so I can check his pupils, AND two pairs of scrubs!!! She loves me! And I love her! And her and my dad were totally flirting, it was so cute! Haha, my dad even made a joke about a sponge bath and checking his catheter… COMPLETELY out of character for my dad! Haha! He is funny on drugs!My experience?? I was at Wal-mart buying a billion cans of Coke Zero for the super bowl party at Kunio’s the next day… (funny, my dad watched the Super Bowl and his heart rate kept on spiking (most amazing game ever! Go Steelers!!!) and the nurse wanted to turn it off but my dad wouldn’t have it! Haha!) So my sister called this is how the conversation went…“DAWN!!! I’m in line at Wal-mart in Logan! You know exactly where I am, how exciting!”(through sobs) “Are you driving?”(worried) “No, why?”“Everyone is okay”(oh no) “What happened”“Dad has had a heart attack”“Who’s dad??”“Dad.”“Our dad?!?”“Yes”(complete shock sinking in, I started to shake, instant sobs came)“Is he alright?!?!”“I don’t know, he is still in surgery, Richard is on his way and John Meadows is there”“I’m on my way to the airport… I’ll call you back”I drop the sodas right where I was (sorry Wal-mart people) and ran, literally, to my car hysterically crying. I must have been a site but looking back now I don’t even remember it that well, it was my first real feeling of shock. Supreme sadness. I needed to get to the airport now, I knew I shouldn’t go alone, in case I got a bad news phone call and I was alone, slash driving, slash whatever… just not a good idea… Family, I needed to call Lacey, tell her and ask her for a ride, she worked in an hour… so normally… like I do in most crisis situations, I called Tim… Asked him through hysteric sobs to take me to the airport (Sorry Kunio, it’s what you get for being Best)… he immediately asked me where I was… Main Street on my way home… He was on his way. My hero. Lacey and Zuma were waiting for me, already looking up flights, bless their hearts, and Lacey was on the phone with my brother, mom and everyone else she could get a hold of. They got my flight and I started packing. I was in a complete daze and literally couldn’t think. Tim had to coach me through what to pack; he stayed back and gave me space, but kept watch waiting for a breakdown, thank goodness for friends. I really, really don’t like being touched when I am crying, and don’t like crying in front of people so he handled it perfectly for me. Zuma must have had some sort of inspiration because he booked me on the same flight that my sister, Dawn, from Boise was on. And Lacey cancelled work for me, thank goodness; I really needed her with me. Lacey, Zoom and I drove to Salt Lake. We were two hours early for my flight so we went to visit my Nana and Papa in the hospital there. That is where we learned of the blessing. We also learned that when my Papa heard about my dad’s heart attack he started having muscle spasms because he knew the blessing was referring to him. Such a testimony builder. When you book your flight last minute, they almost always put an SSSS on your boarding pass… which means you have to put your baggage in a large red bin and stand in a glass box while they go through everything you brought piece by piece then pat you down… I’m not a happy camper at this point. I wanted to get to my sister, I knew she was already there and I needed her. I was mean. I love being mean. It never happenes. But that freakin lady was NOT going fast enough. We won’t go into details but I pried my phone from her clutches, she finished and I literally ran. My luggage strap broke. I picked it up and continued running, I couldn’t be slowed. Of course my gate was on the opposite side of the airport and it took me forever to get there. I finally saw my sister in a clearing as I was going down stairs and ran in her arms. We broke down together. Terribly scared. We couldn’t get to California fast enough. We tried to take our minds off of it on the airplane, thinking of a skit we could put together for our dad… there is nothing he likes more than hearing my sister and I sing (terribly) together… it makes him laugh like no other. (my sister and I are amazing singers… but only together) We though of every song we could think of that had the word “heart” in it… wanna hear part of our list??-Achy breaky heart-tearin up my heart when I’m with you-I swear (with every beat of my heart)-and POP goes my heart! (haha, from Music & Lyrics)-Celine Dion… My heart will go on-Opps I did it again… I played with your heart-and we rewrote Aladdin… A whole new heart!!!Haha, we think we are funny. Comic relief we created. It worked. Then we landed. A family friend picked us up. He was the first to see my dad in the hospital, him and the Elders Quorum President heard about it and immediately went to the hospital, President Payne is a Doctor at Los Robles and was able to navigate his way right to where my dad was. The two of them gave my dad a quick blessing right before, and I mean right before, they were still hooking him up and putting stuff in them as they were doing it, he went into the operating room. John, the family friend, told us he looked gone, past grey to blue, and his face was bloated like he had never seen. He couldn’t breath so he just moaned in sever pain. John took us to my dad’s truck, that still had vomit in it by the way, and we drove ourselves to the hospital not knowing what to expect.The first time I saw my dad that night will leave a permanent impression in my mind for the rest of my life. He looked dead. Gray and ashy. Distant. Not my dad, not the strong, invincible man that I was use to. He wasn’t able to talk to us. He had a mask over his nose that strapped to the rest of his head and he couldn’t talk with it shoving oxygen into his lungs. It was so scary. Worst experience of my life by far. When I walked in the room and he barely opened his eyes he reached for me with his fragile white hands, all that he could move. It broke me, I couldn’t talk to him. I was speechless. Just happy to see him. I couldn’t believe how close I was to never having that experience again. I didn’t want to make things harder by blubbering on in speech, nothing seemed important to say. My sister and brother were there. The four of us bonded like never before that night. Another miracle was my brother. Ever since high school… six years ago now… my brother and dad have had a distance between them. It was really causing a divide in my family. That night when he, my sister and I were in my dad’s kitchen, he said “If there was any doubt that I loved dad, it was erased today.” He got to T.O. from Santa Barbara in 22 minutes… it usually takes an hour and a half… he was on his bike… not recommended. He told my dad he loved him so many times, I have never heard him say it. It was a warm feeling, an amazing feeling. The nurse… Barbara… told us we were lucky to have a dad. We are so lucky, to not only have a dad… but that dad. He is amazing. He is being so positive and in such good spirits all the time, not complaining and helping out anywhere he can. He has been very pleasant. My dad and I now spend our days together, talking about life, making nurses laugh, playing cards and Yahtzee, and I am reading him “The Associate” by John Grisham, and “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins… depending on our mood. I love him so much; I’m lucky to have this precious time with him and am sure we will both remember it always.These of course aren’t all the details… and there are still more days in the CCU and details to come… I may post more if anything terribly exciting happens… but there you go… geez… how do I end this beast?? Umm… the end? Yes. The end! But it’s not… oh man… k well bye then. :)Oh! one more thing! When something like this happens your really find out who is in your support system... who has your back. Thank you for all the calls, texts, balloons, flowers, notes, postings, prayers, to those precious people that fasted, just thanks to everyone that cares. You have no idea how much it means to us. My dad sends his thanks and love as well. You all are so wonderful! We love you!