The male nurse mentioned that the most beautiful sunrises could be seen from my room at HCA Centennial Heart Center. You would think someone granted a new lease on life, would notice, but I hadn’t until he mentioned it. And when did look to see it, I suddenly became humbled, realizing what it meant. I had been given the gift of seeing another day of life, in fact many.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Last Monday, June 28th the same disease that took my grandfather’s life (hardening of the arteries) had come for me. After walking in the park with my wife Joann that morning, and then working out at lunch at Planet Fitness: which included a mile and a half on the elliptical, 27 flights of stairs on the stair stepper, 75 bar pushups and 30 minutes on the machines, I came home tired, but not overly so.
So when I woke up at 11 o’clock that evening with a strange pain between my shoulder blades, settling down in the joints of my arms, I just thought it was the remnants of a hard workout and certainly not the symptoms, or the expectation, of what was to come.
Being a fully certified hypochondriac I know all of the tell-tale symptoms of a heart attack and I didn’t have them. No shortness of breath. No evening sweating. Not even pressure on my chest which I knew were all the classic symptoms, but what I didn’t know is that heart problems and heart attacks are like fingerprints. Everyone’s is different.
So I rationalized that it had to be my workout, but the pain kept getting worse until at midnight I woke Joann up and asked her to take me to the emergency room. Like I said, I still thought I was just experiencing the aftermath of a hard workout, but something in the back of my mind told me there might be more to it, and there was.
Almost as soon as I got to the emergency room they began running x-rays and there was enough concern in what they saw that the decision was made to do a heart cath the next morning... just to be sure. If there really was something going on in my chest, they were prepared to put in a stint. I don’t remember much until I came to in my room, but I did hear the words “quadruple open heart by pass surgery and 95% blockages”. It was a good thing I was still sedated, because I have been known to pass out when getting my blood pressure taken, and once during an eye exam (which is another story.)
A half hour later I am heading downtown Nashville in an ambulance to Centennial Heart Center where they performed emergency by-pass surgery the next morning. A nurse at one of the hospitals (I don’t remember which one) said that even though, on a scale of 1 to 100 my issue was only less than one, I still a heart attack and what was going on inside my chest was a ticking time-bomb. Again it was a good thing I was still sedated, bad news like that has a tendency to make me pass out faster than a frightened Fainting Goat.
Even so, I think Joann and my daughter were probably more frightened than I was, which is unusual, but having been in the medical field (though only as a business consultant) for so long, I knew of all the health issues you can have, heart issues are the most fixable, and the by-pass procedure itself had a remarkable success rate.
It wasn’t until the wheeled me to the operating room, that I began to wonder about what was going to happen. I am not going into graphic detail like those people who corner you and insist on showing you every battle scar and describe in graphic detail what they went through, like it’s some kind trophy, but technically, I was going to die for a short period of time. They would stop my heart long enough to make repairs and then hopefully restart it. I wondered if, for those brief moments, I would see the “other side”--maybe Heaven--maybe even God himself?” I woke up three hours later.
Ok, so you ask, did I see the other side. Did I see Heaven? Did I see God? I left the operating room convinced that I hadn’t, but then something interesting happened. It began with a male nurse named Philip, a burly guy, tattoos on both arms, and a biker-beard from what I could tell under his mask. When he found out that I was a writer, he timidly told me that he wrote poetry, two in particular: one for his father and one about his family. Then he asked if I would like to hear them. How could I not? And so Philip, the burly, tattooed nurse, stood by my bed at 3 in the morning and read his poems, his voice faltering occasionally as he read them, and they were good.
Amber, the morning nurse came in at seven: young, sweet and so little and petite that I seriously wondered if she could manage someone my size, not that I am huge by any means, but I towered over her. To my surprise she actually did better than some of the older, bigger nurses. A recent graduate of the University of Alabama nursing program, she moved back to Nashville. She said, “I just wanted to be near my mom and family-- the four years I was away, getting my nursing degree, were really hard on me.” When she found out that I was a writer, she wanted to see my website, and my books. I played the song All the King’s Horses & All the King’s Men for her on my computer, within a few seconds she looked up at me as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I thought it would be good, but this is incredible. I love it.” She asked if she could share the link for my website with her family. I had to smile, “That’s the reason I made it.”
Kimberly the night nurse took over when Amber’s shift ended; a strict, by the book, sergeant at arms kind of nurse, with a heart far bigger than I would have imagined. On the evening of July Fourth she moved my bed around to look out the window to see the fireworks down on the riverfront, and then came in later to watch with me.
So many nurses, doctors, technicians-even custodial people-stopped in to visit me, and even though it “was their job”, they were so much more than just people just doing a job. They were real people sharing their lives with me and I experienced a generosity of spirit, of talent, and of caring, that was far more than that of professionals just doing a job.
I came home the Monday after the Fourth of July. Joann and my daughter were at my side almost the entire time making it so much easier.
Earlier when they wheeled me out of the operating room I again remembered thinking that I hadn’t seen God, or Heaven; but as I left the hospital five days later it occurred to me...maybe I had. Maybe that’s really the way you see God...in the lives of others.
Before I left the room, I asked that they wait a minuted so I could look back at that window one last time, and I paused to take a picture of a stunning new sunrise. Maybe, I’ll frame it some day, so I never forget to stop, and pause, and remember how special the gift of seeing another sunrise can be.