On the morning of May 30, Bryan and I were working at one of our rental properties - getting it ready for renters to move in on June 1. I was inside painting and Bryan was in the backyard sprinkling grass seed. He came in the house and seemed to be very uncomfortable and said he had a huge amount of pressure on his chest. We thought it might be because he worked too hard and it was getting hot outside, so he went to lie down. A couple minutes later, he came in the kitchen and said, "We need to go to the emergency room right now". When Bryan says that, we move fast because Bryan doesn't like to go to doctors unless it's absolutely necessary. So, I put the paint brush down, grabbed the car keys and my purse and raced to the Banner Gateway Emergency Room because it was the closest hospital. As I shut the front door to the house, I realized that the house keys were inside and we were now locked out of the house (I had to call a locksmith the next morning and it cost me $90! At least I talked them down from $120.) The pain got increasingly worse as we drove to the hospital and it only took us about 3 minutes to get there.
When we got to the hospital, Bryan said he could walk into the emergency room while I parked the car. After parking, I ran into the hospital as fast as I could and saw Bryan sitting on a chair in the waiting room. I threw a fit and told the admitting clerks that he was having chest pain and needed to be seen immediately. They said he was next on the list. I again said he was having chest pains and they slowly got his information and called for a wheelchair. They did an EKG and could tell immediately that he was having a heart attack. Suddenly there were about 5 doctors and nurses in the room with him. They gave him a blood thinner and said they would need to transfer him by ambulance to Banner Baywood Heart Hospital and he would either need a stent or bypass surgery. He was indeed having a serious heart attack - the artery to the LAD portion of his heart was blocked and they needed to take care of it as soon as possible before more damage occurred. As I was driving over to the other hospital, I called our kids to tell them what was happening. BJ and Tyler left work and met me at the hospital to wait with me. I'm so glad they could be there with me - I was very scared and it was comforting having them there. Before they put the stent in, Bryan had one of the nurses come out and give me this message, "Don't order the Lexus yet, I think I'm going to make it!" Knowing he hadn't lost his sense of humor was comforting to me and made me feel better about the situation.
He ended up needing a stent, not bypass surgery, which we were thankful for, and it only took about 30 minutes. The doctor showed us pictures of the blocked artery. The only way I can describe it is, his artery looked like a small rope and suddenly there was a piece of the artery that looked like string. No wonder the blood couldn't get through! Although Bryan was on morphine and other drugs, we went to see him right after his procedure and he was very alert and looked great - see picture above. He had to lie flat for 9 hours (because of the blood thinner they had to give him), which must have been torture for him.
Bryan stayed in ICU Wednesday night and they moved him to a regular room on Thursday, where he stayed until Saturday, June 2. He was probably the youngest patient the nurses had on that floor and I'm sure the most pleasant one as well. I wasn't able to spend a lot of time at the hospital with him, which I feel bad about, but I had to finish the painting and cleaning of the rental house so our renters could move in on schedule. Thankfully, BJ and Tyler and my wonderful friend, Doreen Stradling, came to my rescue when I was about at the end of my energy level on Thursday night and I handed the keys over to the renters at about 7 p.m. I decided I could either sit at the hospital with Bryan, where we would both stress about what needed to be done at the rental, or just go start on the list and get it done. Since everything was under control at the hospital, I chose the latter.
Here is a picture of Bryan on Friday night - the night before he came home from the hospital. He's holding the heart monitor that he wore the whole time he was in the hospital.
What a week it has been! I am still shocked that I came so close to losing Bryan. I'm so thankful he didn't wait around trying to decide if he should go to the hospital because if he had waited much longer, he probably wouldn't have made it. The heart attack he had has the nickname of 'The Widowmaker' and I'm glad he didn't make me a widow this week. He has some damage - his heart is at about 35% right now and normal is 55%. They will re-evaluate in about 2 months and that is where he'll be for the rest of his life, so he needs to be careful and take his meds faithfully and maybe he can improve his number a bit. I'm so thankful he is here with me. A lot of thoughts have passed through my mind this week and I'm really not ready to be a widow. I love you, Bryan and I'm so glad I could pick you up from the hospital today.
