what happened? part 1: pre-surgery

I get asked this question a lot and quite frankly, I am tired of answering it because although I don't really mind answering it, all it does is freshen up the wound. It's like constantly pouring lemon juice on a fresh cut. I'm sure you get what I mean, so I thought it would be better to type it down so I can just refer everyone to this post and everybody gets the same information.

So, what happened? Let's rewind...Thursday, November 13 is a significant day and number for Bear's family. Aside from 13 being his and his mom's lucky/favorite number, Nov. 13 is actually his parents' wedding anniversary. It was about 6:45am, Bear just had finished breakfast when he told me, he had heartburn. I never thought anything bad about it because he often gets heartburn and taking a few Tums would usually take away the pain. He did take some and went on with the day's schedule; he took the kids to school and then went to work. At around 9am, I got a call from his boss telling me that he called an ambulance because Bear complained of chest pains. The paramedics took his blood pressure and because it was pretty high, they took him to the nearest hospital. I was a bit worried but my heart was not beating so hard so I thought, it's probably just high blood pressure. A few minutes later, Bear called me from the ambulance telling me about what had happened and that he was on his way to the hospital. He didn't sound worried and assured me he will be fine and to make sure I don't miss my class which is going to start at 10am that day. As soon as my class was over, I went straight to the hospital but on my way, I got another call from him telling me that he had a heart attack but to make sure that I don't panic and have a car accident. I remained calm, called my sister-in-law to let her know about what happened and got to the hospital safely.

At the hospital, I learned that the EKG did not show that he had a heart attack but his blood work showed high levels of troponin. According to the cardiologist, troponin is an enzyme that the heart leaks to signal the body of an upcoming heart attack. He asked Bear a lot of questions and told us that it sounded like he had plaque forming in the arteries so they need to do a heart catherization to confirm his prognosis. If he indeed have plaque forming, they will put a stent on his arteries but if it's worse, a bypass might be needed. At this point, my worries kicked in. A bypass surgery is a major surgery and if anything goes wrong, he could die. He can't die, I mean at least not right now. The cardiologist tried to calm me down and said that a bypass would be the worst-case scenario and most likely will not be needed. I took a breath of relief when I heard that but also because prior to that, Bear got a priesthood blessing that everything will be alright.

At 2:30pm that day, I had to leave the hospital to pick up the kids while they did the heart cath. Around 4pm, I got the news, it turned out that it wasn't just plaque so they couldn't put a stent. They found three clogged arteries, 90%, 80% and 60% and therefore a triple bypass surgery is in order. The entire time I was praying that it will not get to the worst-case scenario they had previously told me about but I also knew that Heavenly Father would take care of him.