If you asked my kids, they would tell you that “Dad” is like Superman. He is tough even when he bleeds, he can do anything, and he never gets sick or hurts. Well I don’t want to sway their opinion at all, but recently SuperDad had an adventurous weekend that landed him in the hospital for three days and ended with a bang…well…actually a shock.
After a Friday evening without the ability to hold down any food (sorry I am painting a picture here), I retired early to the bed to rest up for a fun Saturday full of pulling kids around our lake on a tube with a jet ski. That lasted about 2-3 runs before I had to give the keys to the neighbor as once again I was unable to hold down anything and felt like I couldn’t walk 100 yards without being completely winded.
Fast forward to Sunday morning, the issues continued. Without any regard for my best pleading, my wife decided (for me) that I was heading to the ER. Ten minutes into the trip, I was hooked to an EKG machine that took the nurse all of 30 seconds to tell me that I was in AFIB. HUH?!?!? I don’t even know what that is.
After multiple draws of blood, heart monitoring and even a stress test (I killed that!) over the course of 3 days, I was wheeled into a special room and hooked to all kinds of fun sticky things that my wife enjoyed ripping off of me later on. Just before this really long camera was shoved down my throat, I was out from the anesthesia (Thank Goodness). Doctors then proceeded to check for any blocks and then “CLEAR” shocked my heart back into rhythm with the paddles.
And if that wasn’t enough of a 3-day experience, during the first evening a tornado was on the ground near my house with my kids home waiting on my parents who couldn’t get there because of the tornado. The house 5 down from me was in flames due to a lightning strike (it didn’t make it), and the fire department couldn’t get there quickly because of…you guessed it…the tornado. So I sat on the bed and talked with my kiddos through FaceTime as they huddled under the stairway. At one point, I even offered to switch places with my wife (hospital bed for chair) who was in the room with me completely freaking out! I didn’t want her to have a heart attack.
