God is Good!

So , on Saturday morning I got up and made my way to the office at about 8:45am. At 9:03 my phone rang and it was Vicki, telling me that she had a terrible pain running up her left arm. The pain was unbearable! I hurried home to see that this was serious. I called Charlene Clark, our resident neighborhood nurse, who quickly says "get her to the ER, now"!

We quickly headed to the ER and when we got to St. Vincent_Salem, we were surprised to be the only one there. They quickly took us back and began a multitude of tests and exams. At first it was thought that it was probably a pinched nerve and that everything would subside. EKG and blood work had found nothing. Most of the pain lessened and we were thinking we would be heading home but after another series of chest pain and a dizzy spell were told, "this changes things". "you are going to need to stay around for a few more hours because sometimes at the first stages of a heart attack, the enzymes in the blood do not point to a heart attack right away". every test that had been taken had said "no heart attack". Three hours later after another blood test the numbers came back and it was thought, this must be an error. The EKG is fine. Let's do another blood test. We then confirmed the the second test was correct! The second test numbers had doubled the first from three hours earlier and the third test numbers have nearly doubled again. When you hear the words "Heart Attack" it gives you a sick feeling in the stomach and thoughts run through your mind that you don't want to think about!

It was determined that we needed to get to another hospital capable of taking care of this. Baptist Floyd was the choice, but Baptist Floyd where our Cardiologist practices does not have a room. "We will get one one as soon as one becomes available, hang tight, we will be in touch. By then Vicki's situation had stabilized do to the great work of the nurses and doctors at St.Vincent -Salem. By this time it is around noon. So we wait for a room, hoping the the process taking place in Vic's heart is not doing more damage as the heart is starved of oxygen and day progresses. Many calls were made to Floyd checking on the availability of a room and finally we were told,"someone is going home and we will have a bed in maybe 90 minutes". This is maybe 6:30 in the evening and the heart attack continues.

Off and on during the afternoon ambulances come and ambulances go, but we cannot get on any because there is no room in the hospital. Finally at around 8:30 or so we get the call that the room is ready we can head that way but,.....there is no ambulance available. One had headed for Riley, and the other for Norton. Those two ambulances are the only ones available capable of handling a patient who has a "drip", which is an IV dripping medicine to break up a clot. Now what do we do. We are told a helicopter will not be an option because the patient is stable and suffering a "non stemmy" heart attack.

I am not sure what happened, or who pulled strings at the hospital but I do know that the ER doctor at the hospital talked to our cardiologist and he said, "take out her drip and put her on the next ambulance and get her down here" When we looked up another ambulance was pulling in to unload a another patient and shortly my best friend was enroute to Baptist Floyd with two EMTs and a sick lady cutting holes in the night with flashing red and white lights at 10:30pm.

When we were there, and got to talk to our Cardiologist, we found that the tests taken on Vicki show two very different tales. Three absolutely perfect EKG's and three enzyme tests showing someone with a serious problem. The next morning we should be able to find out the real story when they would do a Cardio Cartherization.

Word spreads quickly about stuff like this in a small town. Sunday morning I was getting texts and emails quicker that I could answer with well wishes and informing me that people were praying for us.

At approximately 10:30 I received texts from friends saying that their Sunday school class is praying for good results, it was being announced at churches that Vicki had suffered a heart attack and was having a Cath at that minute and people were asked to pray for her situation.

When a doctor that had done 5000 heart cauterizations came out of that Cath lab at Baptist Floyd and told me that my wife had "no blood clots and perfect arteries" and only a condition that causes heart attacks for no apparently reason, once again in my life as I have so many times before, I understood that the "God of the Ages" has heard our prayers and answered!

I could not help but think about what God would be willing to do for our generation if we would but "humble ourself and pray"!

Tomorrow she will come home from from hospital with a couple bottles of small pills that will keep this from happening again.

Thank you all so much from each and everyone in our family for your prayers and concerns and thanks to the doctors, nurses and staff of two hospitals and the ambulance service for doing such a fantastic job for us!

GOD IS GOOD, ALL THE TIME and ALL THE TIME, GOD IS GOOD!