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It’s been almost two weeks since my last post and boy has it been a scary and wild ride. As a mentioned before, I went to my hometown for a long weekend to be with my dad during his knee replacement surgery. That was March 11. I headed back north, he was feeling pretty great considering the surgery and we were all getting back into our groove. Kids, school, practices, couponing, blogging…
I even returned to the gym…until about midway through my exercise class on March 21 when I saw my husband in the window of the classroom in his work clothes. Never a good sign. I figured something was wrong with the kids. Instead he told me that my dad was having a heart attack and was in an ambulance on his way to the hospital. I lost it.
So much went through my head…he lives 2 hours south of me..he just had a surgery…he already has 6 stints in his heart…GOD why can’t he quit smoking…I’m not ready for this…
Long story short, a clot had formed, most likely due the changes that were made in his blood thinners for the knee surgery. The clot went to his heart and got stuck in one of his stints causing a heart attack. He was rushed to the cath lab where they took care of the clot and then spent the next three days in the ICU. It was emotionally draining for all of us, including my dad.
The day after the heart attack, my dad started to tell me the story. He said that he had felt nauseous and then got the sweats. He went out onto his front porch, sat down and couldn’t get back up. Luckily he had his cell phone with him and was able to call 911. None of us want to think of how this story would have changed if he didn’t have the phone.
Every time any of us think about the phone, our eyes get full. I’m still not back to normal. I can’t explain it. He’s had heart attacks in the past and my mom has had some scares as well. But for some reason, this time has hit me hard. I think about my health, how I used to smoke and never worked out. That lifestyle is in my past. I’m proud of it. Probably to vocal and too proud, but that keeps me going when I’m ready to hop off the spin bike and quit.
I hope we’re showing our boys a healthy way to live. I’m hoping to show my dad that small changes are BIG. I hope this is the final eye opener for him.
I hope you are all still bearing with me while I spill my guts. I know my blog is usually about pretty, yummy and funny things. I just needed to get this out there in order to move forward.
A HUGE THANK YOU to all of our friends and family for all the love, support and helping hands. Its been a very trying month, but their help made things much more tolerable.
So…as the title says…I’m now returning to my regularly scheduled (or not so scheduled) bloggy self…
(The above photos were taken the day before my dad’s heart attack. I was hoping to include them in Beth’s You Capture “Youth” theme, but obviously life had other plans. I’m including them here because I can…and they're a reminder of quickly life can change. I had actually talked to my dad while taking these pics.)
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