My Dad

Father/Daughter dance

This picture was taken 6 months before my dad had his open heart surgery. I will not forget the weekend that he went into the hospital with chest pain. It was Friday night and James had gone to Illinois to go help his dad move into his new house and I was at home babysitting my niece and nephews. My sister and her husband went out for her birthday which was that coming Monday and it also was the weekend that they moved in with James and I. 

   I had just got the kids asleep and was reading a book when I got the phone call from my mom. She called to tell me that she was taking my dad into the hospital because he was having chest pain. My dad had a heart attack 6 years prior to this. Anyways my mom couldn't drive since she had just taken medicine so she called my uncle. My uncle and his wife came and picked my mom and dad up and drove them to the hospital. My mom said she would call back when they get the results back from whatever test they were taking. She asked me to call my sister. So I call her and gave her the heads up. Shortly after I got off the phone with her my mom called back and said that everything looked normal and they could find anything, but wanted to keep my dad overnight for observation and do another test in the morning. I called my sister and gave her the update and then called James to let him know what was going on.

 Saturday morning my sister, her husband, kids, and myself were sitting in the living room when I got the call from my mom. They did the second test that morning and it showed a 98% blockage (I believe) in his main artery They were going to transfer him to the Meijer Heart Center in Grand Rapids. They were going to have to put at least 6 stents put in or possible bi-pass surgery. My sister and I decided we needed to head to the hospital to be with our mom. So she found someone to watch her kids, while we went to the hospital. On our way we picked up my 3 younger sisters who were at home.  We got to the hospital and just sat around visiting with everyone who came to visit with my dad. They schedule him to have stents put in Sunday Morning. I called James and asked him to come home to be with me and he did. 

 Sunday morning my sisters, brother-in-law and James and I went to sit with my mom while my dad was in surgery. My aunt and uncle were there too since they had been driving my mom back and forth. We allowed ourselves to joke around and act like the crazy people were are while we waited. The doctor came out and said that he wasn't able to put the stents in like he wanted too. As they started to do the procedure my dads blood pressure dropped so they pulled out. This meant he was having open heart surgery as soon as possible. That afternoon my dad told all of us to leave to go to my grandma's birthday party and to make sure we brought him back a piece of cake.  So all of siblings loaded up in mine and James' suburban and we went to Panera Bread for lunch and then did a little shopping before we headed of to the party. We went to the party and had fun hanging with our family. A few of us went back up to the hospital and we made sure we brought my dad his cake.  I stayed at the hospital until my mom was ready to go home since I volunteered to drive her home. We found out at some point that day the his surgery was going to be on Monday in the afternoon.

 Monday. I did not want to go to work,but we only had a 3 day week and I needed the money so I figured I would work a half a day and then got to the hospital to be there in time before the surgery. I got to work and I had so many people ask me why I was there. They had heard about my dad. He also worked in the same department as me and James. I wanted to cry so bad because my dad was having a major surgery that day. A few minutes before we were suppose to start work one of the crew leaders came up to me and said "your dad called and his surgery is at 11". I was on clean up, so I went and found James and asked if we could leave at first break to head to the hospital. He gave me the okay so I went and found our crew leader and she gave us the okay to leave at first break. She would have let me leave before work even started if I wanted to. James and I leave, but we had to go the bank before the hospital so we could have some cash with us. We got to go on a little breakfast date that morning to McDonalds while we waited for the bank to open. When we got to the hospital my uncle met us in the waiting room and was able to take us to go see my dad before he went into surgery. I am really thankful that I was able to see my dad before he went back in to surgery. When he went back that was when the waiting game started. The hospital had a board with patient numbers on it so we could see the progress of my dads surgery. This was a long day for my family. My older sister spent her birthday in a hospital waiting room, my brother was in Georgia waiting for a phone call from us, my 3 younger sisters had to go to school and then came up afterwards. James and I spent our six months wedding anniversary in the waiting room. My grandma was at the nursing home rehab center celebrating her birthday and wondering how her oldest son was doing in the surgery.  Several people from church came to sit with us as we waited for what seemed like forever and it was only around a 4 hour surgery. Finally my dad came out of surgery. We were able to see him about an hour after surgery which was really nice for all of us who decided we wanted to go. My dad had a triple by-pass open heart surgery.

 

I'm thankful this year as we are coming up to the one year anniversary of this day that I still have my dad. I might not always tell him I love you or give him kisses, but I have gotten better at trying tell him that I love him when I talk to him on the phone. So this Tuesday the 22 is a big day, haha. My older sister turns 30, James and I celebrate 1.5 years(who's counting, right?), and my dad 1 year anniversary from his surgery. 

     Sorry it's kinda long, but it was a very long weekend for me.