A Year Past a Miracle

It's been a full year - as of today - that I nearly lost the love of my life. If you don't know my hubs is a little older than me, so I've always had it in the back of my head that there would be a day that I'd be without him. But in the middle of a pandemic? We had no idea how close we were to living without him.

For weeks he's been dealing with a cough - we blamed it on allergies (though he swears he doesn't have any). The last week of April, though, he was getting progressively worse, short of breath, and very weak. He barely got through that Wednesday night's lesson online. And by Friday he couldn't walk from the bedroom to the living room without gasping for air.

He swore that it was just a bad chest cold. I was convinced he either had Pneumonia or Covid! Nevertheless, he kept taking meds to help with his cough and "chest cold". He was supposed to meet our children's church teacher at church Saturday morning, but was too weak and winded to go. Col and I had been nagging him all morning about going to Urgent Care and he finally gave in - after nearly passing out several times just trying to get ready.

I took him to Urgent Care, and (due to Covid regulations) had to wait in the car while he went in by himself. The Urgent Care doc checked him out (didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would) and sent us to the ER for chest X-rays and testing.

At this point, I was a nervous wreck! Of course, I still couldn't go into the ER with Jerry, so I had to drop him off at the ER door and trust that the ER would actually do something to help him and not make him wait for hours to be seen.

I went to my office to wait instead of waiting in the parking lot - my office is only about 2 blocks from the hospital . Pretty quickly, the ER had gotten Jerry back and ran several tests. First was Covid - negative. then they did that chest X-ray, which really didn't show anything, except that he DID NOT have pneumonia. Ran several blood tests and and EKG of his heart... that's when Jerry called me and let me know they're not sure what's going on but they want to do a CT scan to rule out any blood clots.

I was concerned - but more irritated with the hospital!! They knew we had no insurance, and to be honest, this particular hospital has never been high on my list. Working in healthcare, you usually hear the bad stories more than you do the good ones. My first response was OK - but you know they're just wanting to milk all the money out of us that they can!!

So they took him back to the scan, and as soon as they had the results, the doctor came in Jerry's little curtained-off area of the ER and sat down to talk with Jerry. My sweet husband said he knew it was a big deal when the doc sat down. Jerry FaceTimed me so I'd know what the doctor said....they said the scan showed several, several pulmonary emboli in both lungs. Pulmonary = lungs, emboli = blood clots. When I heard this, my heart dropped to my feet.  

My first thought was "I'm losing him."

Then the doctor went on to say that in addition to the dozens of smaller blood clots, there was a very large blood clot blocking the artery that branches off to both lungs from the heart. This is called a saddlebag pulmonary embolism. So there's an artery that carries blood from the heart to the lungs, and right where it divides and branches off to go to the left and right lung, Jerry had a huge blood clot just sitting on top of that branch, blocking the blood flow to both lungs. So Jerry's cough wasn't due to Covid or pneumonia or even that bad cold Jerry claimed he had...it was his body's way of literally gasping for oxygen to function.

The doctor told us the only real option Jerry would have would be to have a procedure done - and it needed to be ASAP! Of course we agreed, and he called in the vascular surgeon.  

We were warned that if all went well, Jerry would be in ICU for several days, and once he progressed enough, they'd put him on a regular floor for about a week before he could come home. And with Covid restrictions I wouldn't be able to be there or see him for that entire time. 

Jerry had his cell phone, so if he made it through the surgery, I'd be able to chat with him on the cell phone, but he didn't have a charger. So I drove back to the ER to give the nurse his charger so she could make sure he had it after the surgery.  

When I got there, the security officer apparently knew I was coming - he took my temp, gave me a mask and told me to go in to the ER desk. The ER Clerk called Jerry's nurse and told her I was there with his charger and the nurse came out and asked me if I'd like to see him before they take him back to surgery. Of course I said YES! She stressed to me that we'd only have a minute or two, they were prepping the OR now, but in her words "you need to take theses couple of minutes to be with him."  

I saw my sweet husband in a mask, hooked up to all sorts of wires and tubes. Still coughing and still had no strength in his voice. I was afraid this would be my last memory of my husband - and while I was trying so hard to be "strong" and faith-filled for him, I couldn't help but let a few panic-filled sobs come out. While he was laying in bed, he assured me that he'd be fine, don't worry, God's got this. But I could tell he was scared too. We took this selfie - just in case.

I left the hospital and had to sit in my car for a while before I could drive. On the way home, I updated my sister on what the doctor said - and made some other calls to update our state Bishop.

Then I got home where Col had been waiting - all Col knew was that his dad had gone to Urgent care, we hadn't told him anything else, because there was so many unknowns. So I got to sit down with my 16-year-old and tell him that his Dad was in an emergency surgery and while we've been praying for him and for the doctors, there's still a chance that Dad may not come home. Col didn't even know how serious having a blood clot was. So I had to give a little biology/anatomy lesson too.

My sweet sister drove over from our home town while Jerry was in surgery to be with me at home. I owe her so much for staying with me.

Finally, we heard from the hospital that Jerry had gotten through the procedure well. He'd have to be flat on his back for 24 hours in ICU, then go back for a second procedure and then go back to ICU. So far so good, but would the procedure work to bust up that huge clot?

After the second procedure, Jerry called me - and his voice was 100% stronger than it had been! I told him he sounded like MY husband!

That night, instead of keeping him in ICU, the doctor was so impressed with how Jerry was doing that he went ahead and put him on the regular floor! That large clot was all but gone, and the smaller ones were not ALL gone, but definitely smaller and less of them.

The next day, Jerry called me at work to let me the doctor was sending him home - a full week before we expected him to come home. He spent a total of about 48 hours in the hospital, had some soreness from the procedure and would be on meds for the rest of his life, but he was alive, and coming home to his family!!!

The doctor told him that they had two cases with saddlebag pulmonary emboli at the hospital that week - and my Jerry was the only one who made it home. He said furthermore, if we had waited even a few hours to get him to the hospital that day, the outcome would have be much, much different.

And it's been a full year since his procedure. Because of the heart damage the stress from the emboli caused, Jerry hasn't had a drop of caffeine in a year - which some will say is a miracle in itself!

This last year has brought so much heartache and worry and concern for everyone, I think. I mean, it's a stinking pandemic. But for us, it brought that and so much more.

The first few months were the hardest - even with Jerry laying in bed beside me, holding me as he fell asleep, I'd beg God to please not take my husband from me tonight.

I've gotten a little better since then, but the thought of how close I came to losing my rock, my life-line, my love - and my son losing his Dad way too early - still causes my heart to skip a beat and I have to push back the panic once again.

I'm so, so grateful for the Lord being there and truly saving Jerry's life. There's no doubt in my mind he put people in our path that day to give us the outcome we had - down to the vascular surgeon on call who works with a friend of the family (our family now says his name is Dr. Johnson-who-saved-Jerry's-life, because that's always been how we mentioned him). 

Being a year out from this has given us some new vantage points, for sure. We've tried not to take as much for granted in our family because of it. And we know God works all things for the good of those who believe...even if the outcome had been different, I know that He still would have been in it. But I'm so glad He chose to work a miracle one more time.