Renée Warren's Blog

Staying strong

September 5, 2010 at 9:05 pm 6 comments

We can’t possibly control every facet of our lives.  We can’t control when we may die, how tall we may become, or what happens to the people we love in our lives.   But we can control how we react to the bad situations we will all come to face.

Three days ago my father had a heart attack. He survived, but his/our lives have changed.  My father; the most important man in my life, my BEST FRIEND, almost died.  What a shock.

I was nowhere close to him when it happened. I was actually over 3000 Kilometers away. Far enough to feel extremely guilty and completely helpless.  So what happened?   My dad was driving his boat across the lake to his friends house.  About a six minute boat ride.  He hoped in the boat, sunglasses on, shirtless, with a grin for the beautiful day ahead of him.   Two minutes into the ride he started to feel exhausted, sweaty, and had a numbness across his left side that went up to his jaw.  Within seconds his chest felt like it was caving in and he knew something was wrong. He wasn’t sure if he should turn around and go home or continue on to his friends place.

He kept going.

When he arrived he crookedly docked the boat, got off, and collapsed on the dock.  Drenched in sweat and barely able to get up, his friend quickly called an ambulance, gave him aspirin and hauled him up to the road.  The ambulance arrived within minutes.

My mom.

She met him at the hospital, very shaken up.  Her love of over 40 years was lying helpless in the emergency ward waiting to hear back from the doctor.  What was happening?  Was he alive?  Would he survive?  My poor mother. My God she is a strong woman.

The doctors finally let my mom know that my father had suffered a blood clot to this heart and that he would have to be transferred to a hospital two hours away for surgery. One of the top heart hospitals in the world.  Was this good or bad news?  Again … my poor mother.

At this very moment, as I was sitting in an office in San Francisco, I had an odd feeling. I knew I needed to call home to check in.  My mom answered the phone “Bonjour”.

“Hi mom, how are you?”

“Umm, are you alone? Where are you?”

“Yes I am alone mom. What’s going on?”

“I can’t talk as I am on the way out the door, but I want to tell you something.”

‘MOM, whats going on. Are you ok?”

“Renee, your father had a heart attack”

THUD. Sweats. Shakes. Tears. My dad had a what?

Over the course of the next 24 hours I was on edge. I had no clue if my father was even alive.  I couldn’t sleep all night.  What a horrible feeling.  The morning rolled around and I got a call from my sister… “Dad is fine. He had stents put in his heart and a couple angioplasty’s.  He should recover just fine.”  – FEW!

Throughout this whole ordeal my family stayed strong. Really strong. We all knew he would come out of this ok, but it was extremely scary.  When things like this happen, just remember to think positively. We all did and my dad will be just fine.

I love my family.

Entry filed under: Family. Tags: family, heart attack.