Trials Of Life.

Sitting in the hospital waiting room, not getting much from news on what’s going on in the critical condition that he’s in. It’s day 4 in the hospital, and you try to keep your hopes up that all will go well. Your family is surrounding you and everyone is trying to cope with what’s going on. You’re all talking about the past and things that are now going on in all of your lives. But we all know that deep inside everyone is wondering if things could have been different if he would have gone to more check-ups, or if the hospital would have made the right decision in surgery.

                My grandpa has always been a strong one. Not one to sit around and do nothing. Whenever he was bored he would drive over to our house to see if my dad had anything he needed help with. He always wanted to be doing work…but maybe he pushed himself too far.  Going into the hospital one day for a check-up because he had been short on breath for about a year, and leaving with a scheduled date for heart surgery. You’d think you could trust doctors, but maybe they don’t make the right decisions at all times. My grandpa went into surgery that day to have a stent put in his heart because of clogged arteries. Little did we know that Franciscan Skemp discovered mid surgery that they needed three stents but they didn’t have the technology to do it.  He should have been flown to Gunderson or Mayo for this surgery, but Skemp thought they could ‘pull it off’. Without telling the family what they were doing, they just went on and did it. After quite some time, a nervous looking doctor came out, stating, “We’ve had a problem.” Thinking of the worst, my grandma asked what had happened. The doctors stated that my grandpa had a heart-attack during the surgery and his heart was so weak that it could not beat on its own in the condition that he was in. Franciscan Skemp didn’t have the technology to do any other type of surgery on his heart to help him and had him on respirators and a balloon pump keeping him alive. None of us knew what would come next.

                As we sat day by day waiting for him to get better, we had no news of improvement. Seeing him in his room was one of the most horrible things I had ever seen. He wasn’t aware of anything that was going on. Hooked up to many machines with a mask on his face scared all of the younger cousins…it was hard to watch. You never understand the true meaning of being weak and not having any power until you see the ones you loved in the ICU not knowing what’s going on. Restless nights kept us awake as we couldn’t sleep knowing what was going on.  On the 4^th day, the pastor from our church came into the waiting room to say a prayer. To tell you the truth I am not one that goes to church very often but you never know what can happen. The most surprising thing came out of the pastor’s visit…it struck us to the heart. Not a minute after the pastor had said “Amen”, the doctor came in and said “We have good news.” The news was that my grandpa’s heart had slowly started beating on his own and they lowered the amount that the balloon pump was helping. He was slowly getting better! With relief on all of our faces we shared a moment of happiness and tears. The look on the pastor’s face was astonished. It was like he couldn’t believe what just happened. It was truly a miracle.

                After a few days of my grandpa getting stronger and better, he was moved out of the Intensive Care Unit. A couple more days after this he was already home, attending therapy regularly of course. He’s getting stronger and stronger and hopefully will be at his best potential soon. He already thinks he can do whatever he wants again, which is the number 1 reason we all have to keep an eye on him! As patients we put a lot of faith in our doctors. Sometimes that is warranted; unfortunately, sometimes it is not. It makes you wonder if you really can believe in something, and with a blink of an eye, have it come true.