My last 2 weeks

It is a beautiful and cold Wednesday morning. I got 7 and a half hours of sleep (at night) last night. I woke to a husband already awake and getting the house ready for the day. I fed Owen french toast, bananas and hot chocolate before school. I've done the dishes, started a load of wash, and taken a hot bath with a hot cup of tea. Lauryn slept in.

The calm of this morning is almost surreal compared to the whirlwind of the past 2 weeks. It is welcome. It is time. It is needed.

Two weeks ago today, my dad found out he would need a double bypass. Let me just skip to the end, before I go any further. He's okay. The surgery went well and he's now resting and recuperating at home. But two weeks ago today we had no idea what we were about to go through.

I think open-heart surgery is a little like a house fire. In my newsroom, we only cover house fires if they're big -- if the video is good and there's smoke and flames. We don't cover the "little fires" because there's not much to say about them. "Everyone got out alright, damage is estimated at __ dollars, the cause is under investigation." But for the family who just lost their family pictures, their grandmother's wedding dress, their children's favorite stuffed animal -- that "little house fire" was huge. They lost nearly everything. And we in the news don't blink an eye at it.

Its the same with a major surgery. I know that more than 500,000 bypass surgeries are performed in the U.S, each year. (I looked it up.) I know that they are well-tested and safe. I know that when most people hear "double bypass" they say: "oh. wow. well, I hope he's okay, I'm sure he is." But for the family going through it, it is somewhat more emotional.

It was about 2 months ago that dad had a check-up. Mom had insisted. And due to her semi-retirement, she was able to go with him to the appointment. Most everything checked out well, but mom insisted "He's so tired. He's just so tired all the time." It would have been easy for the doctors, or our family, to push that aside: "Of course he's tired, he works very hard, he travels all the time, he is getting older, you know." But the doc didn't do any of that. He instead sent my dad for a stress test and an EKG. After that, a trip to the cardiologist was scheduled. He said we'd have to do a heart catheter. 2 weeks ago, my sister took a day off work, drove down, and we sat in the waiting room with mom while dad did the procedure. We had anticipated a stint, but not what they told us: double bypass. They admitted dad to the hospital and scheduled the surgery in 2 days. My other sister flew in from the other side of the country. I won't give you the entire details of dad's 10 day stay in the hospital. It was all routine for the doctors and nurses, but to us every set-back was frightening, every step forward, a milestone. The nurses were amazing. The staff was great. Even the woman at the lunchroom counter had that calm even tone that meant: "everything's going to be alright" when she said "your change is $2.31."

We spent my dad's 64th birthday in the hospital.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with cafeteria turkey and mashed potatoes in his room. (And it was really good, by the way.)

Brad, and my in laws were great about making sure the kids were taken care of, since they couldn't be at the hospital for much of the time.

Now, dad's home, slowly recovering, but doing well. And, according to all of the other people who have come forward to tell about their bypasses -- he's going to feel like a new man in a few months. And now, it's all really starting to sink in. One of our family members, a retired nursing instructor, made it all real when she found out where the blockage had been. She pointed to the diagram of the heart: "when the blockage is here, we call them 'widow makers.' The blockage was at an even more severe place than that." My dad had been a heart attack waiting to happen. And we didn't know it. I won't get into the "what-ifs" -- I'm not even ready to think about those. But I know those doctors and nurses saved my dad's life. Literally. Mom's insistence. Dad's willingness to go to the doctor. The family doc's willingness to listen. The expertise of so many people to know what needed to happen next. And yes, some divine intervention. Without just one of those actions, who knows what I would be typing right now.

I could go on and on with emotions, memories and tears. But I won't. If nothing else, please just take this post as a reminder to be vigilant about your health. Dad was very healthy... appeared to be very healthy. We could have all missed the signs. Now, as I sit here -- a relatively young woman with high cholesterol and 15 pounds to lose, I'm taking a closer look at my own health. Please consider doing the same.

I love you dad.