Warning Shot

My dad is 56 years old…and was in the hospital this week for heart problems.

Being from Kansas it is not surprising that he is a ‘meat and potatoes’ kind of guy, and fried is always better – add cheese and it is a food Trifecta. It is also not surprising that he has smoked for 40 years considering 26 of them were spent in the Navy. He is a computer guy so it is not surprising that his activity level is right up there with…mushrooms. I am not surprised his heart was screaming for help. That being said, why was I surprised when my sister called to tell me he was in the hospital? The news threw me even though I knew it would come someday.

They were getting ready to go to the desert – they go and play in the sand dunes with their quads – and my dad was starting to feel worse. He had been having a backache for a few days but now it had moved around to his chest and both his arms. When he started feeling nauseous he decided to go to the Dr. This was an hour before they were supposed to leave for the desert and after all the Dr’s offices were closed. They went to Urgent Care who sent him to the Emergency Room. There they started running tests and decided to keep him overnight. The next day he had a stress test. Immediately after that they scheduled him for an angiogram.

The diagnosis was 3 blocked arteries - 2 of them at 75% and the other at 100%. The one that was 100% blocked was forming offshoots so his body was actively trying to remedy the situation (I think that is good). The day after the angiogram they did the Balloon Angioplasty and inserted stents in the arteries to open them up. The Dr’s finished the arteries that were 75% blocked and Dad was doing so well that they went ahead and tried to do the artery that was 100% blocked. They were successful with that one as well. Yippee! Dad went home yesterday with instructions to see a cardiologist and to change his lifestyle. This is where the hard work begins.

Considering the fact that I was not surprised to get the phone call from my sister, I was surprised by my reaction to it. I was not panicked even though they are in San Diego and I was unable to be there and boss people around. In fact I got the call around midnight and was calm enough to go to bed shortly afterwards. I kept the phones on the headboard just in case there were new developments but I figured no news is good news. The next day I waited until around 1pm to call and find out anything and was calm then too.

Thursday, the day of the procedure I was a mess. I wasn’t a sloppy mess, there was no crying or freaking out, but I was terribly unsettled - I couldn’t focus and was very restless. I wandered around the house looking for something to take my mind off of it but everything that was thought consuming I didn’t want to do. When I got the call that he was okay I was relieved but I had so much residual anxiety that I didn’t really calm down again until Friday – which is the day Dad went home.

We know that our parents are going to die. It is a fact of life and is unavoidable. I know this and yet I have never really given it much thought. Sure, being the type of person that I am, I have considered the logistics of the whole thing, but never the feelings. I know at some point I will have to move to California and take care of them and I have pondered the way life will be after they are gone. I have even gone so far as to imagine how we would feel at their funerals…but never their actual death. I have never thought about the process of their passing.

I am going to consider it a type of healthy avoidance and move forward. My dad is okay for now, and if he takes this warning shot across his bow to heart (heh, pun intended) I will have many more years to make sure he knows how important he is to me. But…just in case…I love you, Daddy…please stick around.