Stop and Look

From the Thornton Wilder play Our Town.

In the third act, which takes place in the cemetery outside of town, the people talk about their lives.  I haven't seen it in years and years, but what I remember most was that it was about the importance of "Stop and Look."  

It means to not just let days drift by, because they will be over before you know it and before you want them to.  Instead, "stop and look" at your daily lives.  Let them really hit you.  Be grateful.  Enjoy them.  Live them. 

This week I came close to dying.  Despite being very fit (for my age--75), eating a heart-healthy diet, not being (too) overweight (especially for my age), having low cholesterol, and having low blood pressure, I had a heart attack.

If Vicky hadn't been there, and acted quickly and decisively, I would have died.  Right there.  On the spot.

I was using my upper-body exercise machine, and it was waaaay harder than it had ever been.  After I use this machine I need to rest for a few minutes because my muscles ache from the exercise, as they should.  But on this day not only could I not do anywhere near my usual reps, but my muscles hurt much more than usual (or so I thought at the time....mistakenly). 

So I laid down on the bed. 

The next thing I knew is that there were six strange men in our bedroom.  A blur of activity. 

Here is what happened.   

After I laid down on the bed, Vicky said it looked like I was having a seizure.  I had lost consciousness because my heart had stopped.  I looked dead, complete with my tongue hanging out of the side of my mouth. 

My....heart......wasn't.....beating.

Vicky immediately began CPR which the doctors told us, later, loosened the blockage enough that some blood was getting through and she could feel that I was breathing again.  She called 911.  Two big trucks arrived as soon as they could get here, filled with those six strange men.

It's all a blur for me, and only slightly less of a blur for her.  It was a blur for me because I wasn't getting oxygen to my brain.  The part that isn't a blur for her was, instead, traumatic--seriously traumatic, and always will be.  Here she was, not expecting anything like this, just an ordinary morning, when she immediately noticed something was wrong, and without thinking about it for even a moment began administering CPR that both saved my life and saved my heart so that now I can live without a damaged heart and brain.

I remember being told by the EMTs that I had experienced a heart attack.  Vicky says I answered questions, but I don't remember that.  She says that they asked me my age, and I couldn't remember.  But, what I did was try to calculate my age.  I said something like "well, let me figure it out, I was born in 1948 and it's 2024...."   Sheesh, even though I'm having a heart attack, not even that can stop me from being a boring academic.

Then the six men hoisted me onto a gurney and wheeled me to one of the big trucks.  After they shut the door, I was lying there looking at it saying to myself:  "A heart attack?"

It seemed like within seconds I was at the hospital emergency room.  

And then talk about a blur.  People talked to me, and did things to my body.  A couple of doctors introduced themselves.  I managed to talk to the social worker (I guess) and was concerned that Vicky wouldn't be able to find where I was.  So, someone called Vicky for me.  Thank you whoever you are for that, as Vicky found me there.

Then I was wheeled to an operating room.  A doctor introduced herself to me, and then said they were going to give me something to make me "drowsy."  I looked at my elbow and saw someone pushing something into it. 

After my operation the doctor who did that operation, called an Angiogram. went to the room where Vicky was waiting, explained what had happened, told her how to get to my room to wait for me, and explained to her that my heart started again because of her CPR breaking through the blockage just enough.

I woke up in a recovery room (I don't remember it), and then they wheeled me into my room at the Baywood Banner Heart Hospital where Vicky was waiting for me.  She was getting frantic.  Their system was organized in such a way as to make it so she could be there, could see me, and I could see her immediately. 

I had a heart operation.  The Doctor went through a vein in my wrist with some type of tube and up into my heart to look at it, and found a blocked artery.  Completely blocked. She cleaned it out and inserted a stent.  A stent is shaped like a straw that keeps the artery open. 

Here is something that is a bit unsettling.  I never saw this doctor again at the hospital.  Still haven't thanked her.  We both went out of our ways to thank all of the dozens of other staff who helped me.  We hope we will run into her later this week at my appointment with the Cardiologist.

I went from feeling great, using my exercise machine, and planning on a two-hour bike ride in the dark with Vicky to having my heart stop, then re-start, getting moved to a hospital, having heart surgery and being back into my hospital room with her all in less than two hours.  We wouldn't even have been done with our bike ride by that time.  In fact, if they would have let me, I might have wanted to do that bike ride anyway.  

But the sticks in the mud thought I should recover first.  Blah blah blah  Get well first  blah blah blah

We've been home for less than a day now.  Have two new buckets of medicines.  

.....and is it ever nice.  We got to sleep together last night, in the peacefulness of our home.  We really needed that.  At the hospital Vicky once sneaked into my hospital bed.  One nurse knew and simply said, smiling, "She's your wife."  But most of the time she slept curled up next to me in a chair, right there once again if I needed her...which I did.  

Since we have arrived home, we have done a lot of reflecting on our life together.  We both agreed that if something really bad had happened that we would always have known that we let no day or night go to waste.  

We often talk about the incredible things we have done and seen together in the past almost 13 years we have been married, and we reviewed these memories after I returned home;

•    A total of seven, several-months-long Road Trips....55000 miles +; 

•    3 1/2 years total living in our pickup camper in the wilds of our country...350+ campsites (almost all in isolated areas by ourselves, not in campgrounds)
  

•   Seven STPs (200+ mile organized bicycle rides from Seattle to Portland) with Jules and Sean; 

•   Really getting to spend time with, know, and love our awesome grandchildren; 

•   Knowing, supporting, and loving our children as adults making their own lives; 

•   Our love for our siblings, nieces and nephews;

•   Hiking far off the beaten track (over 4800 miles);

•   Cycling around the world, plus some (total of 32,000 miles);

•   Dancing all over this wonderful country of ours.  We met at a dance. We dance once/week (mostly to oldies).  We love the feeling.  Five days after my heart attack we danced to our favorite song, Today (by the New Christie Minstrels).  The lyrics capture how we feel better than any other song:

           Today while the blossoms still cling to the vine

           I'll taste your strawberries I'll drink your sweet wine

           A million tomorrows shall all pass away

           Ere I forget all the joys that are mine......today.

•    And spending all of our time together.  All of it.  Literally all (except when one of us was in surgery--the only time we have been apart).

We have no regrets.  We always paid attention to our days, and to what we were grateful for on those days.

On the second night in the hospital, I woke up very early, crawled out of my bed, and quietly took a photo of Vicky sleeping uncomfortably in a chair as close as she could be to me.  Told you we were always together.  We want to remember this for the rest of our lives.  

Stop and Look.