| Mary & Marty's |
| A Night To Remember |
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September 12, 2005: We were on own way to Branson with Senior Tours (a two week long bus trip). This was going to be our third trip there. A Japanese violinist and a Russian comedian were on the agenda and I was anxious to see them. | We stopped at a hotel in St. Louis and the next day we would reach Branson. I went to sleep and woke up about 12am to see my husband sitting on a chair. He said, "I must have eaten something to upset my stomach." I fell back to sleep and woke up again about 2am. Now he said, "The pain has gone to my chest and left shoulder." I immediately got on the phone and called the 'desk' - they said someone would be right there. I got dressed and in a few minutes the emergency squad from the hospital was in our room and checking my husband out-they put him on the gurney and rolled him out of our room, I followed. When we got to the ambulance they said I could ride up front with the driver. I should mention here that about two years earlier I had double a double knee replacement surgery and high steps are hard for me to reach-it was one HIGH step to get into the ambulance, I held on to the bars and said, "Marty this is for you." To this day I do not know how I made it "up". When we got to the hospital that was about 6 miles from the hotel-they took Marty out and were rolling him into the hospital when I looked down and saw how far down it was to go- there were two young men at the entrance and when they saw my reaction, each one got on one side of me and helped me down. I asked a woman handling the gurney, "what's happening?" She said, "your husband is having a heart attack right now." They sent me to a waiting room and I waited. About 4am a doctor came and sat with me and said, "the main artery down the center of his heart was completely blocked and we put in two stents and got him JUST IN TIME. Fortunately for us, St. Louis has one of the best hospitals in the country for heart surgery and in the wee hours of the morning a full staff was available to operate on him. So, there I was at 6am waiting to get in to see my husband and it dawns on me that I have to call the hotel and let the tour guide know what has happened. There was a young man in the waiting room with me who had brought his mother in earlier. He was also waiting to hear from the doctor. He had a cell phone and let me use it. I called the hotel, then my children. My son Ronald called everyone else. . . our relatives, neighbors, our church and the Gideons. Everyone was shocked. This was a man of 73 who never needed take so much as a aspirin; he is not obese; he walked 5 miles a day. Just one month earlier had his yearly physical exam where he was advised "everything is NORMAL". When I finally got to his room, the nurse came in and asked several questions. He did not fit in the category for someone being a candidate for having a heart attack. She said, "every once in awhile there is a quirk-and you are the quirk." She told us the attack was so severe that part of the heart died and dead is dead, that the rest of the heart would have to work for the whole heart. " Mind you, here I am in a strange state, strange hospital, strange hotel and I'm listening to this-too shocked to even react. I was completely overwhelmed by the kindness of the hospital and hotel staff (I wrote and thanked them when I got home.) I come from a large family. I was never alone. So here I am in St. Louis, Missouri, over 1,000 from our home in New Jersey, and 250 miles from the bus tour group that proceeded onto Branson. I was all alone. I, who never took a taxi before in my 70+ years, was now calling for a taxi every morning to spend 6 hours each day in the hospital with my husband. He was healing nicely. Then I called a Taxi to take me back to the hotel in the evenings. I stayed in the hotel because I did not know the area. I found out later that across the street was a Mall. I did not realize it at the time because you had to go into what looked like an old train station to get to it. The phone calls came in, the hospital staff told me they never had so many phone calls for any other patient. So they put a phone in my husband's room (something they never did in cardiac care) when I was there so that I could answer the phone. The tour guide called daily plus she gave me her cell phone number. By the end of the week the doctor was talking about releasing my husband, said to get an appointment with a local cardiac doctor even before he left the hospital. My sons agreed to fly out and rent a car and to drive their dad back to New Jersey, or I would ask the bus to pick us up on their return trip. The doctor said "no" to both plans. Marty had to fly home. A little background on me, I will not fly. Several years ago (I am going back to the 1930's) I had an aunt who was going to take me on a short airplane ride. I can still see the line of people along the wood fence while we waited our turn. Just when we were next, the plane crashed. There was lots of confusion. So, as I said, I will not fly even now. Thank God for wonderful children, my two sons came down to fly back with their dad. The tour came back for me and I got home on the same bus that went to Branson. Today, Marty's report from the cardiac doctor is good. He is back to walking 5 miles (even though in the hospital they said he would never be able to walk that much again, they said-maybe a mile and a half). The cardiac and also the primary doctor are pleased with his recovery. |
