So I had a Heart Attack ...

I very rarely take an intermission from my weekly BLOG centered on taking a second look at scripture; right now we are in the book of Luke.  But my personal testimony was amended this past week to including going through a heart attack, and I believe God deserves a praise report on this experience from top to bottom.  It began on December 1^st a Wednesday with a phone call from my wife on her way to work.  She had a car accident, and called me first thing, having been hit from behind with damage to our car, but way more importantly with pain in her back and neck.  So I at once began trying to help her any way I could.  Calls to 911.  Trip to the site.  Exchanging insurance information, waiting on the police report.  Then taking her to the CentraCare facility to be X-rayed and triaged and given pain shots, etc.  It took most of the day before we were driving home having addressed the crisis for my wife.  When only a few blocks from home, it hit me.  Both sharp and constant pain in my chest running down my left arm on a scale of one to ten, it was a traditional eleven.  But I finished the drive and retired immediately to my big yellow chair.  My whole life, I always do great in a crisis, and fall apart only after it is done.  I assumed this was that.

I have had pain like this before.  And I do things to not pay attention to it.  I work.  I watch TV.  I focus on my iPad.  Or in the worst of cases, I go to bed and hope that a long sleep will change the outcome when I wake up.  Thursday came, and my pain was better, down from an 11 to a 7 or 8.  I just assumed this was me getting better.  When Friday came, my pain was down to the 3 or 4 range and I assumed this entire incident was behind me.  As if you were unable to read between the lines already on what God deserves praise for, from here the interactions become even more unmistakable.  As it turns out, I had a heart test scheduled on Tuesday of this week (the day before my wife’s accident).  And a second different heart test scheduled at the hospital on Friday (the third day since it all began).  My wife had arranged to take me to this test and stay with me throughout it.  That heart test revealed (you guessed it), I was in the middle of an active heart attack.  One of my arteries was 100% clogged.  But miraculously, my heart had found “work arounds” from other veins/arteries in the area providing blood to that part of my heart for no explicable reason.  I was rushed from testing lab to ER (only spent 5 mins there), and was admitted to the Cardiac ward immediately.  The doctors who read my tests understood what was going on, but could not provide a real good explanation of it.

I was immediately given huge doses of aspirin, and nitro glycerin.  My interventionist was called and the next morning (Sabbath for those keeping track), they attempted to do a procedure where they go through my wrist, up my artery, and insert a stent into my clogged artery providing a sort of rubber hose bypass to get the blood going.  They managed to get a balloon in there to force it open; but could not place a permanent stent because the smallest stent was still too big for that particular artery.  So that means my artery was cracked open once by balloon, but the junk is still in it, and it could re-clog up at any time.  The plan of attack is now just heavy meds to try to clean it out that way.  Obviously, I am changing my diet, and trying to mobilize as best my back and remaining lack of breath, and lack of flow will permit.  I feel like a truck ran over me.  But I guess that is a common feeling when getting out of a hospital.

So back to God for praise.  My wife never left my side.  She even slept in my room in the hospital and I use the word “sleep” lightly as that rarely happens.  But she was not just “there”, she was praying for me, for my doctors, and the staff the whole time.  My two primary nurses (one day, one night) were outstanding.  I got the on call cardiac interventionalist, but he happened to be the best one in the entire department, very very experienced, and did the stents for my best friend, so I already knew of him.  The care at AdventHealth (formerly Florida Hospital) in Orlando, is second to none.  I had multiple EKGs, blood tests, and sonograms of my heart throughout my experience.  How I got the best people, at the time when just a little more delay might have killed me, is not coincidence, it is providence.  My whole experience was like a well-oiled machine.  You would have thought everything was planned in advance, choreographed, and then executed with flawless precision.  It was.  It just happened to be God’s playbook, unseen by us, but still carried out flawlessly.

So what happens now?  I am home.  My wife was given a week off to care for me.  She has.  I have been the subject of much prayer, and I am so grateful for that.  I welcome every prayer sent up on my behalf.  Even though I still feel like I was run over by a truck, and even though these meds will take a while to fix me, I know it is God who has the final say over me.  If I reclog up tomorrow and find myself passed away from this mortal coil, I will yet sing the praises of my Lord Jesus Christ.  I love my family.  I was able to see my baby granddaughter through all of this.  They snuck her into my room.  And her smiles light up a city.  That kind of medicine only God could have arranged.  You see they live in Los Angeles and decided to travel here only to see us without ever knowing these events would transpire.  God will decide when or if I am briefly parted from her, or my wife, or my family.  But while I am here, I will praise the Lord.  And I will try to continue to serve Jesus Christ with every second, and every breath I have left.  He does so much for each of us.  And everything He has done for me, overwhelms my heart, in no matter what state I find it.

My wife and I have found new passion in greeting each day with prayer to God, thanking Him for a new day of life, and then enumerating to Jesus the needs He already is way ahead of us on for others.  You can bet that precious baby granddaughter tops the list, but she is followed by our children, our parents, our families, and then each of the ones Jesus puts in our path.  My wife carries a long list there, and I am grateful we are still able to lift them up in prayer.  That is the least we can do, and perhaps the most we can do.  If you have time and would like to pray for my wife, I know she needs it.  As you may recall this whole incident began with a horrible car crash that actually accordianized the offending vehicle against the back of my wife’s car.  She spends so much time caring for me, I think she is ignoring her own needs, so once again I would welcome prayers for her graciously.  I hope you do not ever have to experience a car accident or a heart attack.  But I am beyond certain, that God has seen us both through this one.  I don’t know what I will be able to do going forward, but while I can, I hope to pray often.  If you have a need, please message me and let me know, it would be my honor to lift you up in prayer to my God who I have personal testimony hears and answers in His tender mercies.  Everything I have been through shows me that over and over again.