"CODE BLUE TO THE CATH LAB!"
It
was right around this time on this day in April that my entire world fell
apart. I had taken John to the hospital because he was having chest pains.
The same chest pains he was there for 2 weeks before, that they dismissed as
“not cardiac related," discharged him with the suggestion that it might be
anxiety and that we should see his general doctor to see if he can give him some
anxiety medication. This time, his pain was much more intense but, otherwise,
the same. We got to the hospital and they got him hooked up to an EKG. The
doctor came in and I heard them say “STEMI” when they were looking at his EKG.
I immediately looked at them in horror and they knew that I knew what they were
talking about. The doctor called me out in the hall and said, “there is going
to be a lot of activity here in about 30 seconds. Your husband is having a
heart attack.” I immediately started crying and he said that they were going to
call people in to open the Cath Lab and they were going to get a stent into his
artery and stop the heart attack. I asked him if he was going to be ok and he
said, “I think so. We just need to get him to the lab and get the attack
stopped.” In the meantime, about 6 nurses came running into John’s room and
started pumping him full of blood thinners, nitro, aspirin, putting IVs in both
arms and generally freaking me and John out. John got sick to his stomach and
he told me he was going to throw up. No one seemed to be paying attention to
what he was saying so I grabbed a small trash can and held it under his chin
for him to puke in. Then I grabbed a towel and wiped his chin. I couldn’t get
close enough to him to hold his hand or try to comfort him. All I could do is
look at him and try to stay calm so he stayed calm and tell him “I love you” as
much as I could. I did ask him, “Are you ok?” which was a stupid question to
which he responded, “Are you kidding?” I said, “I know, honey. I’m sorry. I
love you so much. Please try to stay as calm as possible in all this.” He
looked at me and his eyes softened. I think he felt how scared I was at that
moment. I’m sure he was, too. They finally found someone to open the Cath Lab
and they literally ran John in his bed, with me very close behind, for what
seemed like forever, to the elevators. When we got on, they pushed 3 and told
me that when he doors opened, they would go right and I would go left and they
would send someone out to give me an update after it was over. I asked how long
it would take and they said 1 to 2 hours. The doors opened and they started
going. I yelled, “WAIT!!” I leaned over and kissed John and said, “You’ll do
great. I will be here waiting for you when it is all over. I love you so much.”
He said, “I love you, too, sweetheart.” And they took him back.
I went to the waiting room alone. I texted my son and daughter to let them know that John was having a heart attack and they were putting in a stent to stop it. My son happened to be at the hospital visiting his grandfather so he and his wife came down and sat with me while I was waiting. A friend of mine and John’s was in town and she came down and sat with us, too. About an hour after Cameron got there is when we heard, “CODE BLUE TO THE CATH LAB! CODE BLUE TO THE CATH LAB!” I immediately started crying and Cameron grabbed my hand and said, “Mom, we don’t know that it’s him.” I said, “They opened the Cath lab for him. He’s the only one in there.” I got up and started walking around trying to calm myself but all I could think was that my one true love was gone. I got sick to my stomach. The room started to spin. I fell to my knees and started sobbing. I just couldn’t believe that he was just there 2 weeks ago for the same chest pains and now he’s gone?? Cameron came over to me and helped me up and held me for a minute and took me back to the chair I was sitting in. About that time, the doctor came out and told me that they had dislodged the stent and it made his heart stop. He said they got him back but that they would have to do surgery to bypass the stent. At that time, we heard again, “CODE BLUE TO THE CATH LAB! CODE BLUE TO THE CATH LAB!” The doctor went running back in and came back out a few minutes later. He said, “I need to know what your decision is.” I didn’t really know I had one. So, I asked what would happen if they didn’t do the surgery. He said he would not come back. So, I said, “and if you do the surgery, he’ll be ok?” He said, “Honestly, this is kind of our last ‘Hail Mary’. We don’t think he will even make it through the surgery.” I thought well, those are fucking great choices! I told him that even if it is only a slim chance, we had to do the surgery. I couldn’t lose him now. I had waited my whole life for this kind of love and I wasn’t going to give up on him now. He said that they were going to bring him into the hall in a few minutes and I could see him briefly then. I asked if he was awake and he said no. I waited for about 10 minutes and they came and got me. John was laying there in the bed, looking like he was sleeping. I was crying and I leaned as far over the rail of the bed as I could and kissed him on his cheek several times and softly said in his ear, “Please come back to me, my love. I can’t do this without you. Be strong. I love you so much.” Then they took him away and I went to the 4th floor and waited.
When they were prepping him for surgery, he ‘coded’ again. That time it took longer to get him back. They did the surgery and after hours and hours they called me and told me that his heart didn’t come back after the surgery. They put him on one machine that kept his blood circulating and oxygenated, another machine that controlled a balloon pump to keep that motion going in his heart, and a ventilator that kept him “breathing.” Essentially, my husband was dead and they were keeping him alive. They wanted to give his heart 48 hours to see if it would come back. I got to see him briefly just after about 7am when he went to the Cardiac ICU.
I went home for a little while to see if I could sleep since I had been awake all night. I couldn’t sleep very well and went back to the hospital at about 11am. Later that evening, his kidneys failed and he swelled up so much it looked like he might burst. It was miserable looking! They put him on dialysis and told me that he came in with Stage 4 Kidney failure. I told them they must be mistaken because I had gone to every doctor appointment with him for 2 years and no one said anything about stage 4 kidney failure. I told them he was diabetic so, of course, he had some compromised kidney function but he was not in failure. They said it was in his chart. He had also been pumped so full of blood thinners before going into the Cath Lab that he was bleeding from every orifice of his body and also from each “port” they had established for IVs or machines to keep him alive. His nose was bleeding incessantly so they put gauze in both nostrils so full that his right nostril actually split. It made me sick to my stomach to think of the pain he would be in if he were awake. I couldn’t stand it but the only thing that kept me from giving up was that 48 hours and the hope that his heart would come back. Then the next morning they said his liver failed.
That day, in the early evening, we all met with his doctor about John’s prognosis. The doctor said that he was very surprised because he didn’t think it would happen, but John’s heart did come back. He said it was functioning at about 35-45%. An average person functions at about 50% most of the time. We all thought that was really great news. But, there was more. He said that this WAS, in fact, good news but the bad news was that John had not been given any sedatives or pain medication since he was brought up to the ICU after his surgery and he had not shown any signs of waking up. He said he thought his brain went without blood flow too long because of the 3 times that his heart stopped before they got him into surgery. He suggested that we have a neurologist evaluate him and tell us what to do. So, we did that. Dr. Lyons evaluated him and then told us that he didn’t think there was much function at all there but that he wanted to give him about 48 hours to see if it might come back. He said that even if some function did come back, that John would never be the same person that he was before all of this. I asked him about all of those news stories you hear about where people that were thought to be brain dead come out of their comas months and even years later and seem to be fine, for all intents and purposes. He said that those people had a traumatic brain injury. One part of their brain was injured so the rest of the brain ended up compensating for that one part that wasn’t functioning. Johns issue was a global injury. His entire brain was affected because of the lack of blood-flow and oxygen for so long. So….again….we wait.
I spent one night at home during this time. I couldn’t bear to be in our bed without him there. I needed to be with him. I would go in and sit with him and hold his hand. We played music for him. His friends brought a playlist that they thought he would enjoy and I hooked it up to speaker so John could hear it. I looked for little signs that he was there and he was responding to my voice. I told him to squeeze my hand and he did! Three times! I told him to open his eyes and he did! I watched the monitors like a hawk just waiting for him to initiate a breath on his own. He did it….several times. But, it wasn’t enough. I tried to make him come back to me. But, he didn’t or couldn’t. After 48 hours another neurologist evaluated him and confirmed what Dr. Lyons had said 2 days earlier. John might have brain stem activity at best. Nothing passed that. There was no way to have a CAT scan or MRI performed because he was hooked up to more machines than NASA possesses so we had to take the experts word for it. We decided to ‘discontinue life support.’ What a shitty way to say, we decided to let him die. I can’t tell you that I was ok with this decision because I wasn’t. But, I didn’t really have a choice because I knew what my husband’s wishes were because we discussed scenarios like this and the state he was in at that moment was NOT what he would have wanted. So, close to 1pm on April 17, 2017, we went in to be with him when they discontinued life support. When they were pulling his ventilator out, John opened his eyes and looked directly at me. I was crying and holding his hand. I looked back into his beautiful eyes and told him through my tears that I loved him so much. I just kept mouthing “I love you” over and over. The only thing that made the process bearable for me was the fact that he didn’t linger and fight for air/life/whatever after they got him unhooked. It was very quick after they were done that John died. I know that might sound like a horrible thing, but I don’t think I could have made it if he thrashed around fighting death when we were so sure that this was what he wanted. If he had, I would have lost it. He was done.
Unfortunately, I was not. I wanted more of him. I wanted all of the plans we had made. I wanted our honeymoon. I wanted to, at least, celebrate ONE anniversary. We had only been married for 5 weeks when he died. 5 weeks. Why didn’t we get married sooner? Why hadn’t we found each other sooner. We had known each other for over 30 years. Why did this have to happen this way? We had both said that we never expected to find a love like ours. But, now, it’s gone. At least the physicality of it all is gone. My love for him remains as strong and true as it always has been. We were realists. We both knew that, barring some horrible accident, he would go before me because he was 22 years older than me. We also knew that I was going to be a wreck when it did happen because we were both well aware of the intensity and depth of love we both had for each other. We just didn’t expect it to be so soon after starting our lives together and then VERY soon after starting our marriage together. My sweet man, my best-friend, my lover, my best bud, my soul mate, my joker, my sweetheart, my everything, and, with him, a good part of me died on April 17, 2017 at 1:01pm. I will never be the same. I long to hear his voice. I miss him calling me from the living room every morning to ask if I was going to come drink coffee with him. I miss hearing him tell me he loves me. I miss his eyes….his beautiful eyes. The way he looked at me so lovingly and sexy. I miss his scent. I miss his arms holding me tight. His hands. He had such beautiful hands. So strong and protective. I loved the way he touched me. What I have now are wonderful memories but, I can’t begin to count how many times I wished on a falling star, a rogue eyelash, at the minute of 11:11, that I could just have one more day with him. I hope with every fiber of my being that there really is a heaven and that we will again be together one day. But, for now, I must hold tight to my memories and try to be some semblance of my former self. I’ll never be that woman again but I must try to continue to live the way John would want me to. He was my everything and he deserves to be honored and I will try to do that every day of the remainder of my life.
I went to the waiting room alone. I texted my son and daughter to let them know that John was having a heart attack and they were putting in a stent to stop it. My son happened to be at the hospital visiting his grandfather so he and his wife came down and sat with me while I was waiting. A friend of mine and John’s was in town and she came down and sat with us, too. About an hour after Cameron got there is when we heard, “CODE BLUE TO THE CATH LAB! CODE BLUE TO THE CATH LAB!” I immediately started crying and Cameron grabbed my hand and said, “Mom, we don’t know that it’s him.” I said, “They opened the Cath lab for him. He’s the only one in there.” I got up and started walking around trying to calm myself but all I could think was that my one true love was gone. I got sick to my stomach. The room started to spin. I fell to my knees and started sobbing. I just couldn’t believe that he was just there 2 weeks ago for the same chest pains and now he’s gone?? Cameron came over to me and helped me up and held me for a minute and took me back to the chair I was sitting in. About that time, the doctor came out and told me that they had dislodged the stent and it made his heart stop. He said they got him back but that they would have to do surgery to bypass the stent. At that time, we heard again, “CODE BLUE TO THE CATH LAB! CODE BLUE TO THE CATH LAB!” The doctor went running back in and came back out a few minutes later. He said, “I need to know what your decision is.” I didn’t really know I had one. So, I asked what would happen if they didn’t do the surgery. He said he would not come back. So, I said, “and if you do the surgery, he’ll be ok?” He said, “Honestly, this is kind of our last ‘Hail Mary’. We don’t think he will even make it through the surgery.” I thought well, those are fucking great choices! I told him that even if it is only a slim chance, we had to do the surgery. I couldn’t lose him now. I had waited my whole life for this kind of love and I wasn’t going to give up on him now. He said that they were going to bring him into the hall in a few minutes and I could see him briefly then. I asked if he was awake and he said no. I waited for about 10 minutes and they came and got me. John was laying there in the bed, looking like he was sleeping. I was crying and I leaned as far over the rail of the bed as I could and kissed him on his cheek several times and softly said in his ear, “Please come back to me, my love. I can’t do this without you. Be strong. I love you so much.” Then they took him away and I went to the 4th floor and waited.
When they were prepping him for surgery, he ‘coded’ again. That time it took longer to get him back. They did the surgery and after hours and hours they called me and told me that his heart didn’t come back after the surgery. They put him on one machine that kept his blood circulating and oxygenated, another machine that controlled a balloon pump to keep that motion going in his heart, and a ventilator that kept him “breathing.” Essentially, my husband was dead and they were keeping him alive. They wanted to give his heart 48 hours to see if it would come back. I got to see him briefly just after about 7am when he went to the Cardiac ICU.
I went home for a little while to see if I could sleep since I had been awake all night. I couldn’t sleep very well and went back to the hospital at about 11am. Later that evening, his kidneys failed and he swelled up so much it looked like he might burst. It was miserable looking! They put him on dialysis and told me that he came in with Stage 4 Kidney failure. I told them they must be mistaken because I had gone to every doctor appointment with him for 2 years and no one said anything about stage 4 kidney failure. I told them he was diabetic so, of course, he had some compromised kidney function but he was not in failure. They said it was in his chart. He had also been pumped so full of blood thinners before going into the Cath Lab that he was bleeding from every orifice of his body and also from each “port” they had established for IVs or machines to keep him alive. His nose was bleeding incessantly so they put gauze in both nostrils so full that his right nostril actually split. It made me sick to my stomach to think of the pain he would be in if he were awake. I couldn’t stand it but the only thing that kept me from giving up was that 48 hours and the hope that his heart would come back. Then the next morning they said his liver failed.
That day, in the early evening, we all met with his doctor about John’s prognosis. The doctor said that he was very surprised because he didn’t think it would happen, but John’s heart did come back. He said it was functioning at about 35-45%. An average person functions at about 50% most of the time. We all thought that was really great news. But, there was more. He said that this WAS, in fact, good news but the bad news was that John had not been given any sedatives or pain medication since he was brought up to the ICU after his surgery and he had not shown any signs of waking up. He said he thought his brain went without blood flow too long because of the 3 times that his heart stopped before they got him into surgery. He suggested that we have a neurologist evaluate him and tell us what to do. So, we did that. Dr. Lyons evaluated him and then told us that he didn’t think there was much function at all there but that he wanted to give him about 48 hours to see if it might come back. He said that even if some function did come back, that John would never be the same person that he was before all of this. I asked him about all of those news stories you hear about where people that were thought to be brain dead come out of their comas months and even years later and seem to be fine, for all intents and purposes. He said that those people had a traumatic brain injury. One part of their brain was injured so the rest of the brain ended up compensating for that one part that wasn’t functioning. Johns issue was a global injury. His entire brain was affected because of the lack of blood-flow and oxygen for so long. So….again….we wait.
I spent one night at home during this time. I couldn’t bear to be in our bed without him there. I needed to be with him. I would go in and sit with him and hold his hand. We played music for him. His friends brought a playlist that they thought he would enjoy and I hooked it up to speaker so John could hear it. I looked for little signs that he was there and he was responding to my voice. I told him to squeeze my hand and he did! Three times! I told him to open his eyes and he did! I watched the monitors like a hawk just waiting for him to initiate a breath on his own. He did it….several times. But, it wasn’t enough. I tried to make him come back to me. But, he didn’t or couldn’t. After 48 hours another neurologist evaluated him and confirmed what Dr. Lyons had said 2 days earlier. John might have brain stem activity at best. Nothing passed that. There was no way to have a CAT scan or MRI performed because he was hooked up to more machines than NASA possesses so we had to take the experts word for it. We decided to ‘discontinue life support.’ What a shitty way to say, we decided to let him die. I can’t tell you that I was ok with this decision because I wasn’t. But, I didn’t really have a choice because I knew what my husband’s wishes were because we discussed scenarios like this and the state he was in at that moment was NOT what he would have wanted. So, close to 1pm on April 17, 2017, we went in to be with him when they discontinued life support. When they were pulling his ventilator out, John opened his eyes and looked directly at me. I was crying and holding his hand. I looked back into his beautiful eyes and told him through my tears that I loved him so much. I just kept mouthing “I love you” over and over. The only thing that made the process bearable for me was the fact that he didn’t linger and fight for air/life/whatever after they got him unhooked. It was very quick after they were done that John died. I know that might sound like a horrible thing, but I don’t think I could have made it if he thrashed around fighting death when we were so sure that this was what he wanted. If he had, I would have lost it. He was done.
Unfortunately, I was not. I wanted more of him. I wanted all of the plans we had made. I wanted our honeymoon. I wanted to, at least, celebrate ONE anniversary. We had only been married for 5 weeks when he died. 5 weeks. Why didn’t we get married sooner? Why hadn’t we found each other sooner. We had known each other for over 30 years. Why did this have to happen this way? We had both said that we never expected to find a love like ours. But, now, it’s gone. At least the physicality of it all is gone. My love for him remains as strong and true as it always has been. We were realists. We both knew that, barring some horrible accident, he would go before me because he was 22 years older than me. We also knew that I was going to be a wreck when it did happen because we were both well aware of the intensity and depth of love we both had for each other. We just didn’t expect it to be so soon after starting our lives together and then VERY soon after starting our marriage together. My sweet man, my best-friend, my lover, my best bud, my soul mate, my joker, my sweetheart, my everything, and, with him, a good part of me died on April 17, 2017 at 1:01pm. I will never be the same. I long to hear his voice. I miss him calling me from the living room every morning to ask if I was going to come drink coffee with him. I miss hearing him tell me he loves me. I miss his eyes….his beautiful eyes. The way he looked at me so lovingly and sexy. I miss his scent. I miss his arms holding me tight. His hands. He had such beautiful hands. So strong and protective. I loved the way he touched me. What I have now are wonderful memories but, I can’t begin to count how many times I wished on a falling star, a rogue eyelash, at the minute of 11:11, that I could just have one more day with him. I hope with every fiber of my being that there really is a heaven and that we will again be together one day. But, for now, I must hold tight to my memories and try to be some semblance of my former self. I’ll never be that woman again but I must try to continue to live the way John would want me to. He was my everything and he deserves to be honored and I will try to do that every day of the remainder of my life.
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