My Journey to Widowhood

A Day I Will Never Forget

December 18, 2014, six months after I had asked for a divorce, I had taken the day off work to help my sister, Christin, Christmas shop for her three children. We had stopped at a restaurant 30 minutes away to grab lunch when Michael text me and said that he wasn't feeling well and a couple of the guys from work were going to drive him home. We had taken Logan to Dry Gulch Christmas Train the night before. It was cold and rainy, so I figured that he had probably caught a cold or possibly the flu. He assured me that he was fine, to take my time and he would see me when I got home. Christin and I finished our lunch, drove back to town, and then I went home to check on him before going to her house to wrap gifts. He said that he was cold, chilled to the bone, and couldn't get warm. I made him a cup of TheraFlu and left to go to my sisters and wrap the gifts. He text me not long after I got to her house and said that he wanted to go to the doctor. I left immediately and met my mom on the road leaving my sister's house to get our 4-year-old son. Logan hopped in the car, and we raced home to Michael. When I pulled in our driveway, he was already walking out to us. He said that "something wasn't right" and he wanted to get checked out. We drove to urgent care in town and went inside. There were a couple of nurses standing at the front who asked if he was having any discomfort in his chest, and he said yes. It still didn't register to either of us what was going on. They said that he needed to go to the hospital and offered to call an ambulance. He quickly told them that I would just drive him, and we left. We got about 15 miles from Muskogee Hospital when he started having trouble breathing. He was not a hand holder, but I would reach over from time to time and take his hand to try and calm him. I was driving as fast as I could, and I remember looking in the back seat and calmly asking Logan if his seat belt was buckled. That is something that Logan still remembers about this day as well; Mom driving really fast, asking over and over if he had his seatbelt on. I recall trying to smile at him when I would ask this so that he wouldn't realize how sick his daddy truly was. 

We made it to the hospital, and as soon as I pulled into the emergency entrance, Michael opened the passenger door and started puking. I helped him out of the car and Logan and I went to park the car. Once we got back to him, we walked inside, and he was asked if he was having any chest pain. They took him back immediately to do an EKG (Electrocardiogram). I will never forget that day. He was lying on the bed; Logan and I were standing against the wall. The technician did the EKG and calmly left the room. Seconds later a doctor came running in screaming "Get out! He is having a major heart attack!". I was in shock. Did he have the wrong patient? My husband couldn't be having a heart attack. He was 35 years old and took good care of himself. He lifted weights and worked out 4-5 times a week. He ate healthy meals and drank 2 gallons of water most days. I took Logan's little hand and we walked to the waiting room. We sat there for what felt like an eternity before the doctor came out and sat down beside me. He held my hand while I sobbed and he told me that I got him there in time. He explained that Michael was having a heart attack, and he had put in one stent. We later learned that 60% of his heart was dead, and the part that was working only pumped at 15%. They were only able to put in the one stent because they didn't have any other place to put one in the part of his heart that worked. He was in the hospital for six days at that time. He was released on December 24th, and I remember this specifically because he was worried about not being home with Logan for Christmas.

When he was released from the hospital, I had high hopes for his future. You hear all of the time about people having a heart attack and going on to live a normal life. We walked about a mile each day to try to build up his strength. He had to wear a life vest for 90 days that would shock his heart if it got out of rhythm. He would get so aggravated because when he would get around loud noises it would start beeping to alert him that it was going to shock him. This happened several times at Logan's little league basketball games. He would have to sit near the exit so that he could get away from the noise before it shocked him. After 90 days, he had a defibrillator implanted in his chest.