A very long 9 days.....

It's been a very long stressful exhausting last 9 days and still not an end in sight. The day after Thanksgiving my grandma walked over that after noon and said that my grandpa had been having chest pains since leaving our house the day before. (and later found out that it started Wednesday afternoon) I went over there and took his blood pressure and talked to him to find out what his symptoms were. In my 29 years of life never once have I see him in his bed during the day ever! So I talked to him and told him that it was serious that all the symptoms was leading to something wrong with his heart. He kept saying oh we won't go to ER they will just tell me its indigestion and send me home. I argued a bit told him how serious this could be and would be better to find out it was nothing versus waiting and getting worse. I went back home and Kenny and the boys started watching a movie and I went in to the bedroom to read a book. About 2 hours later my grandma came back over and said he was having hot flashes and getting sick to his stomach and thought about what I had said and needed to go.

We arrived to the Rolla ER around 9pm Friday night I knew as soon as they hooked up the EKG and watched the rhythms that something wasn't right. They started giving him drugs they give when you are having a heart attack. At that time they hadn't said anything about a heart attack so I kept that info to myself. Finally around 2 am they came and said they wanted to transfer him to a hospital in St. Louis and asked us which one. Of course neither of them knew anything about any of the hospitals up there so I chose Barnes. I knew it was easy to get to off the interstate and that it was an excellent hospital for heart attacks. After waiting two more hours the ambulance came to take him I was glad to see it was from St. James and I had worked with the crew before. The EMT is a friend of mine and he told me he would text me when they arrived and tell me what room they were putting him in. Which was a relief to know who was taking him and to know that I would be told when they got there and how he was doing on the ride down.

I took grandma home to let the dog out I went to my house to change shirts and to grab a few things and tell Kenny where we were headed. I had been up since 6 am and it was now 4am and I was tired however I knew I needed to get grandma down there so we could talk to the doctors. I had never drove on the interstate at that hour it was creepy no cars on either side and well being that tired made it worse. I was so darn happy to see the sun coming up by the time we reached the city. The ER there was nice the doctors and nurses kept coming in and out and talking with us by 9 am they had a room ready and we went up with him. The Cardiologist even walked with us to the room and talked with us the whole way. They knew he had a heart attack and the doctor asked who talked him in to going and they told him I did. Well he came up to me and said if you wouldn't have talked to him and told him the importance of coming in he would have died in his sleep. Not a thing you want to hear!!!

On top of the heart attack he had been having blood in his urine and had a biopsy done on a spot in his kidney earlier in the week which then was told the kidney needed to come out. I knew going in that the meds he needed to stay alive and keep his heart going was going to affect the bleeding from the kidney. And the whole time the doctors had a delicate balance of giving enough meds but not so much as to lose a lot of blood out of kidney.

We stayed up there all day Saturday and finally came home around 5pm still hadn't slept any. Once I got home I had to go in to mommy mode with the kids then I did our grocery shopping. Grandma wanted to leave by 9 the next morning so I managed about 2 hours of sleep that night. Went up on Sunday found they moved him to another floor due to having more chest pains. It was decided that a heart cath would be done Monday morning at 7am and if stints would fix it they would do it while in the procedure room. Grandma and I stayed up there all day again and got home around dark. My mom and my uncle didn't think we needed to be up there before the procedure. I knew how risky it was and knew Grandma needed to see him prior and knew he would like to see her. So against their thoughts we arrived at the hospital at 6:30 and got to see him for over an hour and walk down to the procedure room with him. He was glad to see us to take his mind off the events. He has never been in the hospital and didn't really understand what all was going on. Heck he never even had high cholesterol!

They started the procedure and finally my mom, stepdad, uncle and his friend arrived an hour or so after he went back. We waited and waited and finally the dr came out and said two arteries had over 90 percent blockage and he needed open heart surgery and it would either happen today or first thing Tuesday. So we waited and waited some more and about 5 pm they said he was stable enough to have surgery tomorrow (Tuesday) but that if we wanted to see him prior we needed to be there at 5:30 or before. Of course no one thought there was a need to be there other than Grandma and I. I told her I didn't care how tired I was if she wanted to be with him before we would get there in time. Left home at 3:30 and arrived around 5 after a caffeine stop to keep me awake. He was super glad to see us and told us he loved us both and to tell the boys he loved them if he didn't make it... It was the first time ever ever ever I had ever heard him say that to me or to grandma. He was taken down for surgery around 7 and they took us to the waiting room about 3 hours later my mom and uncle showed up. They gave us updates every hour from the OR and after 6 hours of surgery he was done and it was a success. Grandma and I waited around to see the doctor and to go in and see Grandpa he was out of it and didn't know we were there but it was nice to get to see him and know he was ok.

So every evening after that I have taken Grandma up there after work to see him and then this past weekend I took her all day on Saturday and Sunday. My house is piling up with stuff and laundry and I miss my kids. But I have to keep going no matter how tired I am living off soda and a few hours of sleep. My mom didn't think grandma needed to go daily but I wasn't going to tell Grandma what she could and couldn't do if she wanted to see him I was going to make it happen. I had to continue to be strong not show how upset or tired I was. I understood how dangerous and and how close to dying he was had several other doctors thank me for telling him he needed to go. Had texts from friends saying my EMT class and license just paid for its self.

Hopefully he will come home in a few days he is getting stronger. Once he is healed from this he goes back to have the kidney removed they told us it was a slow growing cancer so they felt safe with waiting a couple months.