Sunday, February 1, 2009

January brought some tough stuff

4 days after my birthday celebration my brother had a heart attack. It was a massive heart attack. My family was in church at the time except for my wonderful husband who got to come to the church and grab us out of worship so we could rush to the hospital ER. What looked like it was going to be a calm Sunday very quickly turned into a fight for my brothers life. Our small town doesn't have the ability to care for cardiac patients long term so once they had him fairly stable, my brother was loaded into an ambulance for the 2 hour drive into the city. What a tough drive that was. No idea what would be waiting for us once we got there. Praying he would be okay. By the end of the week he would be okay. My brother, Paul, had open heart bypass surgery on January 16th. The doctors were repairing damage to vessels that was apparently caused by an illness that was undetected when my brother was a child. It was a long surgery, but very successful. By the next day Paul began to feel strong again and now two weeks later except for a scar on his chest and a very sore leg he looks like himself only better.

In the days that followed the heart attack I was again reminded how wonderful my friends and family truly are as prayers and support surrounded us. It was a difficult time, but I'm grateful for the reminder not to take our loved ones or our time with them for granted.


Through it all we didn't loose our sense of humor either. As Paul was getting ready to go into surgery they put a cap over his head. It was called a bouffant cap. When I came in the room and found this out we started joking about him having a bouffant hairdo and he asked me to snap a picture as it would be the only time he would have one!


Here he is with his "bouffant" hairdo!

1 comment:

Gretchyn said...

So so glad your brother made it through the surgery and is on the mend. My Bible study group has been praying for him and for your family.