Issue of the Heart

A little excitement around here last night! To say the least. Time is limited, so I'll just get right to it.

Andy was doing the dishes after dinner, and suddenly cried out in pain. I thought it was his hip, which does that to him from time to time if he twists just the right way. But it was a pain in his chest - left sided, sudden on-set, like a jolt of electricity. We debated for a short while. He admitted that he hasn't been feeling perfect relative to his heart, and we determined to go to the ER (first we called his cardiologist, but the answering machine just refers you to 911 instead of giving you an option to talk with a doctor. Oh well!)

When we stepped outside it was blowing like crazy, and the blowing snow almost kept us from being able to see more than 3-4 feet in front of us. Andy was calm, even got out of the car and opened the gate for us as we were leaving the property.

But things went down hill from there. Within a quarter of a mile of the house he was telling J and I how much he loved us and that he would be okay one way or another because he would be with Jesus and he knew we would be fine and able to take care of ourselves. He was experiencing shortness of breath, pressure, a sense of confinement/claustrophobia and he was pretty scared. That had both J and I really scared and crying at that point. Crying does not help with the driving.

We drove about 1.5 miles to the local gas station/mini mart and called 911 (no cell reception in our area). Then we waited what seemed like a really long long time.

All tolled, from the time we called 911 to the time we arrived in the ambulance at the hospital - 1.25 hours. The roads were terrible! And the fact is we don't live in a place all that easy to get medical help. The volunteer fire department guys were on scene in about 15 minutes (the fire house is about .25 miles from the gas station, but they all had to get there from their homes, and remember, the roads were terrible!) I'm not complaining about the service, they guys were wonderful, but it was a bit of a wake up call to realize just how isolated we are, even though most days it seems we live "just outside of town."

So, at the ER they determined no heart attack. We went home late with instructions to contact the cardiologist this morning. That doesn't surprise me. Andy's not really a candidate for a heart attack. But, his heart is not normal. Never has been. He has about 5 congenital defects in that heart of his - leaking valves, enlarged aortic stem, and little pieces of filament floating around near valves. He's always functioned normally with all of that going on. Runs marathons when his hip isn't bothering him. Runs almost daily even when the hip is bothering him.

But yesterday he went from asymptomatic to symptomatic. That, frankly, is a huge change!

The little filament is the thing that scares me. Several years ago we talked to the cardiologist about that being a potential conductor of electricity, which makes Andy more vulnerable to a sudden heart stoppage if it conducts electricity in just the right (or wrong) way. Nothing we can control, not a risk that is super high, but more of a risk than those of us who don't have that little string thingy in our hearts.

I suspect that little string conducted some electricity last night, just fortunately for us, not a lethal amount.

God was at work last night. At our church we call these things "God sightings." Here are a couple of them:

At the gas station the daughter of close friends appeared - she drove J to the hospital so I could ride in the ambulance. She called her parents, who came to get J and take him home last night when it was clear there was not immediate crisis but we were going to be there very late. She would not normally be there, but she needed gas, and then decided she had far enough to drive that she wanted to use the restroom. That is how I saw her, as I was in the foyer, answering questions from the volunteer fire guy out of the wind. J knows this family and is comfortable with them. Has spent the night with them in the past so Andy and I could have a date night. J loves them!

One of the volunteer fire men is a friend of ours and a Christian, so the praying spread from just me and J very quickly!

The wind stopped blowing just as the ambulance was ready to leave the gas station - although the roads remained icy, the visibility was much improved!

And most of all, Andy lived. He really thought he would not.

There are other things, but not enough time to go into all of them here. Just be assured, we know the hand of God was there on us!

Please pray for Andy! Frankly, I don't want to lose him. I know he is taking this very seriously because I didn't have to fight to convince him not to go for a run this morning. He already had determined on his own to wait for approval from the cardiologist on that!

Pray for me to be calm and not hover over him and be fearful that he will just suddenly drop dead. I suspect that this is going to be a situation where the doctors will have to admit they don't know what happened, and we will just have to incorporate it into our experiences and move on. Emotionally, that will be a challenge, but we aren't likely to withdraw from life, so we need to do it.

I'm off to go get J, and to try to have a normal productive day, and hopefully to drive Andy to a follow up appointment with the cardiologist.