So, I went to the hospital and I saw my Mom and she was raring to go and get out at 1:40 p.m. yesterday afternoon. I was ready to drive her back home 25 miles away according to our optimistic plan. Ken and I had arrived to the hospital about 10:30 a.m. Her surgery meant that a tiny camera went through the major artery in the groin area up to the heart region where they took care of some of the build up in my Mom’s heart. Thinking only positive thoughts, I went with Ken to have lunch.
After an hour I returned and the nurses appeared all in a flurry, they had just survived a certain emergency code. Since I wasn’t there, I don’t know what color it was, perhaps RED alert! Apparently, the half hour before my Mom had gotten up to go to the bathroom and had eaten some lunch and was feeling nauseas and ready to pass out. As it turns out her breathing did stop and they claim she had a heart attack, her heart stopped for six seconds. My Mom was rapidly turning blue.
So, I returned to a wrung out woman who was shortly thereafter whisked off by the efficient staff to ICU (Intensive Care Unit) and I sat in the ICU lounge until 6 p.m. This scare made her realize she has to call off all her extracurricular activities and other volunteer work that she so enjoys. I will have to supervise that she doesn’t do extra lifting of 10 lbs and other things she is so capable of doing. My dear Mom is a DOER, a Mover and a Shaker at age 73. She is still very much young at heart.
I suspect that this heart “procedure” was SOOOO effortless because when it was done my Mom didn’t even know they were finished as she was surrounded by the doctor and seven nurses with their big medical equipment. I think she thought she would be up and out frisky as ever. In any case, once she passes through this adventure that is misnamed as a “procedure” and should be clearly understood as an invasive surgery, she will be up around in no time. I’m glad she is still with us. Those four or five hours I waited up to 6:00 p.m. to see if she would rally in her ICU room, I had some forboding thoughts of missing my mother.
One thing I’m also thankful for is that I didn’t take her home any earlier than planned because I would NOT have known what to do with her in the half hour car trip if she had had this reaction to her sedative a little later. Yes, her “Procedure” for her surgery is really a misnomer but thankfully it turned out to be just an adventure and not a loss of my dear Mom.
