BrainVacation.com - Genetics Sucks

My brother John, his wife Tina, my nephew Andrew and I were going to the zoo Sunday April 9th when my dad called me. He told me that he was trying to change the garbage disposal when his chest started hurting. He said he didn't think it was anything serious, but he wanted me to come to the house incase he had a heart attack. I asked him if he was dizzy or having breathing problems and he said no. Since both of his parents had heart trouble, I didn't want to take any chances. We had just pulled in the parking lot at the zoo, so I dropped everyone off and went to my dad's house.

Once I got there he told me that his jaw and left arm were also hurting, which all together are classic signs of a heart attack. He also told me that his chest was hurting for about an hour before he called me, which didn't surprise me. I got him in my car and we started off for Germantown Methodist Hospital. I learned that he canceled his health insurance as we were getting in the car. I wanted to fuss at him for that, but I didn't want to aggravate his situation.

Once we got to the hospital they did some quick checks and got him in a room. They ran an EKG and about ten seconds later there were six people around him putting sensors on his chest, pumping medicine in both arms and bringing equipment in. At that point I realized that this wasn't a strained muscle or a fractured rib. It took every bit of strength I had to keep from crying. I knew that he had to be scared and my crying wouldn't help him to stay calm. I was so upset that I couldn't remember my brother's number. I asked dad if he remembered it and he didn't respond immediately. A delayed response wasn't unusual for my dad, but everybody in the room stopped and looked at him to see if he was coherent. After about five seconds he said the number. I called John and tried to discretely express that he needed to get my mom to pick them up and bring them to the hospital immediately. The doctor came in about a minute later and said, "You're getting a lot of attention right now. The reason for all the attention is that there is something on your EKG that is really concerning me. You're having a minor heart attack. We're giving you all this attention to make sure that your minor heart attack doesn't turn into a major heart attack." After a few minutes of tests and preparations, they took him upstairs to perform a catheterization. They handed me a bag with his clothes and sent me to the waiting room.

Everybody else showed up while they were performing the catheterization. My brother started crying and some of the tears that I was fighting back earlier began to slip out. After a minute, I started thinking about notifying relatives. I remembered how upset my dad was when his sister fell down some steps and he didn't find out for almost a month. I started digging through the bag of his clothes looking for the little black book that he keeps all his numbers in. I later found out that he took that out and left it at the house because he didn't think he would need it. I knew of another place where he wrote down some numbers, so Tina and I decided to drive to his house real quick and get them.

During the catheterization they found the blockage that was causing the heart attack and put a splint in to open it up. They also found another clog, but didn't want to do anything with it yet. They said it was not completely blocked and they didn't want to do too much to the heart at one time. He is going to have to go back soon and go through this all over again.

They moved my dad to the ICU and moved us to another waiting room. After a while, they told us he was ok and we could see him. To cut the rest of the story short, John, Tina and I spent the first half of the week in the hospital with my dad. He was released the following Wednesday afternoon.

A month later he is doing much better.