The Monday after Easter, I had a hair appointment. A friend does my hair, so we spent almost 2 blissful hours chatting and having my hair cut. I left around 11:30 and called my hubby on the way home. We chatted a bit and I thought he sounded a little different. I knew he had been feeling bad the last week or so, but I thought maybe he was tired or something. I got home, finished school with the kids and was eating lunch when I got a text message from Greg. He said he started feeling really bad and he took himself to the ER. He also said not to worry and to stay at home, but I tend to ignore his crazy rantings. My mom took the kids and I went off to Emory University hospital. Not very close by, but easy to get to for sure. As you can imagine, I was a nervous wreck when I got there. He wouldn't tell me what was wrong so I had nothing to go on. When I got there he was in a room and looked just fine. He was smiling and talking, so I was a little relieved. Then he told me he had a heart attack. At 36 years old, my sweet husband had a heart attack and drove himself to the hospital. I am so beyond thankful that it wasn't so severe that he couldn't get himself there, but to say this was a total and complete shock is an understatement. The past few days have been kind of a whirlwind.
Tuesday, he had a catherization to see if he had blockages that needed to be dealt with. The doctor came out to tell me that he has several. They needed to go in and put stents in at least 3 of them that caused the trouble, but there was a risk that the artery would rupture and they would have to do emergency bypass. At that time they would take care of all of the blockages which would result in a triple or quadruple bypass. The doctor was so nice, but honestly, I was a mess. I was there by myself, scared to death. I mean, my husband is 36 years old and we have two small children. He can't leave us! My dad passed away almost 9 years ago from complications from his quadruple bypass, so I really do not have a whole lot of great memories associated with the surgery. Thankfully my best friends talked to me on the phone through the whole thing.
Finally, the surgeon came out and looked so relieved that it went well. He said that Greg was a very lucky man. The stent placement went well and he was doing fine. Later the doctors came in to talk to us and show us how bad his heart really is. There were many more blockages that needed to be dealt with and he has diabetes. Not to mention a valve problem in his heart. They seemed confident that they could do the surgery and he can go on to live a long, healthy life. As long as he continues his medication and doctors appointments. Obviously a healthy lifestyle is important too, but as genetics have played a huge role in this event, there isn't anything we can do to change that.
His second stent placement was scheduled for May 2nd. They put three more stents in after a very long surgery. he was bumped once for an emergency, then they had trouble getting the line started in his wrist and ended up going through his leg again. The surgery was only supposed to last 60-90 minutes, but was closer to 2 hours. I was SO nervous! It was a little harder on him than the last one, but he seems to have bounced back just fine. We are home now, and while I am afraid to let him out of my sight, I am just trying to trust that he will be okay. It is so hard.
**I posted this at my other blog as well. The Days of Our School Lives
