Worst. Week. Ever. (Part Two)

(On my last post, I said I would continue my story "tomorrow". Well, you know how they say tomorrow never comes? In this case, it came the day after.)

OK, where was I? Oh yeah....

So, by the time I got to the Heart Tower at Memorial Mission in Asheville, the hubs was all settled in his room and the cardiologist had already come in to see him. They came in not long after I arrived and did yet another ultrasound as well. (And I do have to say, I forgot that a chest x-ray had been done in the ER here in Spruce Pine as well. They were really on the ball.) I was a bit blind-sided though when Chris told me that he'd had a "mild" heart attack after all. (If you ask me, the word "mild" should never be connected to the phrase "heart attack".)

Here's the gist of what happened: The electrical signals in his heart got messed up somehow causing his heart rate to go up. The heart tried to compensate, but was not able to d/t a possible blockage (they did not know for sure at that time), which caused the heart attack. We had thought they would do a stress test, but instead they were going to do a heart catheterization the next day. For those who may not know what this procedure entails, you can check it out on Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiac_catheterization) if you'd like. The short of it though is that they cut into the femoral artery in the groin area (something that thrilled the hubs to no end for sure) and the catheter is inserted through there and up into the heart. They then inject a dye and see what's what. Sound scary? Yeah, it did to me as well.

That first night at the hospital was pretty miserable. I stayed there with him, trying to sleep on one of those recliners they have in the room. Mostly I lay there in the dark, staring out the window at the flashing red lights on top of the two cell towers across the way. The hubs didn't sleep much either. Besides all the stress of the situation, people were coming into the room every so often to check his vitals, take more blood for tests, etc. I was freezing as well, but wouldn't let them turn up the thermostat since the hubs was comfortable. It's easy to add more blankets, and bless the nurse who brought me one from the warming cabinet. He was a sweetie. (And, I do so want one of those cabinets in my house.)

Anyway, made the trip back home the next morning (Wednesday) to check on the cats, grab a quick shower, grab change of clothes for the hubs (they were saying he'd probably be going home on Thursday) and then headed right back to the hospital. (For those who don't know the area, it's a bit over an hour drive.) They still hadn't taken the hubs down to the cath lab. It's kinda one of those hurry-up-and-wait situations. You know  you're going that day, just not exactly when.

(As it is now getting late, and I still haven't had a good night's sleep since we got home last week, I'm ending this here. Yeah, I know. Maybe if I shortened it up, put in less detail, I'd have it all out there now. But, hey...this is me. I'm a talker. So, hopefully, I will be back with the rest of the story tomorrow. Not promising that of course, but I will at least try.)    :-)