“You need to stay focused”
Chapter 3
I remember the bounce of lowering my gurney on the hard ground as we arrived to the hospital. At this point I continued to be clueless as to what was really going on. I had no idea that I had “coded” (I have learned a few new terms like “coded” versus dead). I remember thinking that if my gurney had wings I would have been flying as they ran me into the emergency room for attention. I remember asking myself if my wife was actually going to come to the hospital, as I had told Deena to tell my wife as it was only a back problem.
I remember watching people rushing around the emergency room working with a great deal of urgency. I remember asking myself if back pain could be so serious that such urgency would be required in an emergency room. Again the doctors and nurses asked me the same rather redundant questions as I had been asked earlier by school staff and paramedics. This time however, the questions were more in depth, and more of them. It was then for the first time I sensed a level of deeper concern. To this day I remember looking into the eyes of the doctor asking me the questions and trying to read their mind regarding what was going on. The one feeling I did get was that this moment was not a Mr. Rogers Neighborhood event. (I know that is a rather corny thought, but at the time I really had no idea what to think other than being a little corny).
I did not exactly know what they were getting at when they asked the questions, and upon reflection maybe I did not want to know, but I honestly still had no idea what was going on other than my back shoulder blade pain still existed.
Do I have high blood pressure? Do I smoke? Do I drink (excessively I think)? Do I have high cholesterol? Did anyone in my family have heart problems? Have I had shortness of breath? To all the questions I responded no with exception of cholesterol and shortness of breath. I told them that I had been taking medicine for 25 plus years for the cholesterol and wouldn’t you be short of breath over the weekend if you had been throwing hay for horses and chain sawing down trees? The doctors and nurses responded with a nod and a laugh.
Perhaps this is where I went into the denial mode. I processed that I was not having anything but back problems given the fact that I completely passed the heart disease barrage of questions. I remember looking around the emergency room trying to listen to the doctors and nurses attempting to figure out what was going on that caused everyone to work quickly and talk with a rather urgent tone of voice. Then as if I were falling asleep without the feeling of fatigue shortly after finishing the barrage of questions unbeknownst to me I died or “coded” for the second time.
As if awakening from a nap with my wife softly touching my cheeks this time a nurse was doing just that while I lay in the emergency room. I remember like it happened yesterday the nurse softly touching my cheeks and telling me that “you need to focus”. I must have looked at her with a totally confused manner as she then went on to explain that “you keep on leaving us”. “You’re a very, very lucky individual that the paramedics got you here in 3 minutes and 20 seconds. Anything more than 5 minutes would have been too long. If you leave us again, we will have to run you up to the Cath Lab (Cardiac Catheter Lab).”
Looking back this is where I should have asked the most obvious question of the day “what the heck is going on” perhaps I guess, I really did not want to know the answer as the entire event was so far outside anything I had ever experienced.
It was then as I lay in the emergency room, and not until then, that I had any idea how serious the situation really was. While before I watched the doctors and nurses’ scurrying around the emergency room frantically doing their jobs, I found myself transfixing my eyes on the ceiling of the emergency room. My mind suddenly did what is portrayed on the TV and movies, as it went into the Hollywood mode of thinking about everything done or undone in my life.
I thought about how I was far too young to leave my kids without a father. I thought about my daughter, Stephanie that was 23 at the time. I thought about not being able to walk her down the wedding aisle someday when she gets married, and how difficult it would be for her to do it without me. I thought about my son, Brandon that was living so far away, now working on a career with Disney World and alone, and how I could no longer be there to offer advice. I thought about how my children would handle not getting their ritual text message every morning when I wake up saying “good morning … love ya … have a great day”.
I thought about my wife, and all she has done putting up with me for almost 26 married years plus 5 years prior as we were the product of a high school romance. What hit me like a ton of bricks were the thoughts of how badly I would feel if I left her with many things she would no longer need or want and would become an unwanted burden very quickly.