Now, I know what some of you might be thinking when you see the title of this post.  The “prologue” is usually at the beginning of the book.  But I personally think this might be a good place to share the “backstory”.  And hopefully, if I’ve done a good job in the first five entries, you’ll be interested enough to actually read the prologue rather than skipping over it as can often happen.

As I stated in my first post, this journey began long before either of us realized it. That’s how heart disease works.  It’s like the fable of the boiling frog – a frog is put in tepid water which is slowly heated until it’s boiling.  Because the slight temperature change happens slowly, the frog doesn’t realize the danger until it’s too late.  That’s why heart disease is called a “silent killer”.  It builds up over a period of time, a lot of times with no visible symptoms – until it’s too late.  You might get a few subtle “clues” that something is going on – a little shortness of breath, maybe a little tiredness, etc – that can easily be attributed to things like the heat, getting older, etc.   Not everyone experiences the same symptoms.  Harold’s shortness of breath could be someone else’s chest pain.

His symptoms did not appear overnight – he just began to notice them more.  And his blockages did not form overnight – they were years in the making.  Several things can increase your chance of having some type of heart disease:

• Smoking – Harold smoked for about 30 years before finally quitting in 2011.
• High Blood Cholesterol – only recently had his been slightly elevated
• High Blood Pressure – again, only recently had his been elevated
• Physical Inactivity – he tried to exercise with me, but it was hard on him.  This could have been an indication that he wasn’t getting enough circulation.
• Diabetes – thankfully he had never had a problem with this.  Even right after surgery his levels were good instead of being elevated as can be the case.  However, it does run in his family
• Advancing Age – he just turned 64.  While 64 is certainly not “old”, as you age your risk increases
• Being Male – uh yeah I think that one is a match
• Excess weight – check.  And, most of his excess weight had formed around his midsection.  This is a dangerous place to gain it as it’s location is close to many vital organs and can increase the risk of certain health complications such as diabetes and heart disease.
• Family  History – his dad had three bypasses and his paternal grandmother died of a massive heart attack in her forties.  His mom had a pacemaker when in her mid fifties.
• Frequent Stress – While he enjoys the interaction with the customers and his personality is a perfect fit for working biker events, I think that some of his work related traveling may have been more stressful than we really thought it would be.  The long hours on his feet, rushing to get flights, etc. really wore on him the later into the year and the more events he worked.  And forget about eating right.  While most people love to eat out, eventually it gets old – especially when you aren’t the one deciding where to eat.

I could probably continue to flood you with statistics, but there’s a good chance that you would stop reading at this point.  My goal is not to “preach” at you – just show you that Harold was “ripe” for what his body was going through.  As I said at the beginning – his “symptoms” didn’t appear overnight – we just didn’t notice them.  His body tried to alert him, but it wasn’t until his shortness of breath was occurring after routine tasks (taking out the trash) that it became glaringly clear something was wrong.  Even some occasional “lightheadedness” wasn’t enough to trigger an alarm.  I guess that what I am trying to communicate is to listen to your body and what it is trying to tell you.  And, that while there are some risk factors you cannot control, (family history, age, etc) there are certainly things you can do to fight against many of these risk factors (diet, exercise, monitoring/controlling high blood pressure/cholesterol).  Finally, just because Harold has already gone through a quadruple bypass, it doesn’t mean he can continue to ignore those factors that he is able to change (diet, exercise, etc).  There is still a risk that he could have a heart attack.  But as he often says, he didn’t have someone put their hand in his chest for nothing.  It was a wake up call which has been and will continue to be a game changer for us.

We now have two things to celebrate on October 3rd.  See, it’s not just the day that he would undergo major heart surgery, it’s also our wedding anniversary (this was our fourth).  When we found out on October 1st that surgery was necessary, we had hoped it wouldn’t be scheduled for the 3rd.  When it was, needless to say we were a little disappointed (okay, maybe more than a little).  Instead of going to the beach to watch the sunrise together, I would be spending the morning in the hospital waiting room while he spent the morning having a quadruple bypass.  Instead of celebrating with a nice meal, I would be eating a “wonderful” (insert a good dose of sarcasm) hamburger in the hospital cafeteria while his only meal consisted of ice chips and only ice chips.

But, we had a choice – be upset that the surgery was scheduled on our anniversary or, as I said earlier, choose to celebrate that day as an additional occasion that involved the heart.  Of course we chose the latter.  There will be countless opportunities to watch a sunrise.  There will be other opportunities to celebrate with a meal out .  However, without the surgery, those opportunities could disappear in a moment should he suffer a heart attack or stroke.

The surgery was the first one scheduled which meant a very early morning.  He would most likely be heading to pre-op between 6 and 6:30 am,  so I left the house at 3:45 and arrived at 4:30.  I wanted as much time as possible with him before the surgery.  The nurses let me in early and even waited to let me wake him up before they took his vitals, etc.  The kids arrived around 5 am to have time with their dad as well as wait with me during the surgery.  After walking alongside him as far as we could as they wheeled him to the surgical unit, we continued on to the waiting room.  As is usually the case these days, we were given a number that allowed us to watch on a monitor the progress of the surgery.  When we first got there, he was listed as being in “holding” (which made me think of a holding cell at a police department).  We kept waiting for it to change to “pre-op” as others had – but it didn’t.  Of course that caused my mind to think of all kinds of different scenarios (those darn “what ifs”) .  Finally, at 8:15, it went straight to “procedure” (insert BIG sigh of relief).

We were told that the surgical nurse would come talk to us and that the surgery was slated for 300+ minutes (just over FIVE hours).  Around 9:30, the surgical nurse came out to tell us that they had started the first bypass and she would let us know when the surgery was finished, which should be another couple of hours.  About an hour later, while I was walking to the bathroom, she passed me in the hall – but didn’t really make eye contact.  Of course that started setting off alarms in my head.  I first tried to rationalize that perhaps she was talking to another family but then I reasoned that since she was the surgical nurse, his was probably the only one she was involved in.  When I got back to the waiting area, my heart about stopped when I saw her sitting with the kids.  It was about an hour earlier than I had anticipated the surgery being done, so I immediately started to worry (surprise surprise) that something had gone wrong.  But no, she was there to tell us that the surgery was wrapping up and that everything had gone well.  She took us back to the surgical recovery unit where he would be once the surgery was complete and went over what to expect (breathing tube, etc).  Shortly afterwards, the surgeon came out to let us know the surgery was complete, went well and they were just waiting on a chest x-ray before releasing him to recovery.  It was going to take a long time to get the smile off my face.

When we were taken back to see him, my relief (and subsequent adrenaline rush) replaced any worries and any fears that I wouldn’t be able to handle seeing him with the tubes, etc (as I mentioned in a prior post, I am extremely “squeamish”).  He was asleep and yes, I had to avert my eyes from the tubes, but just to be able to touch his face and tell him I loved him was enough at that point.  Since it would be a few hours before I could see him again we went to get that “wonderful lunch” I had mentioned earlier before the kids headed home.  Afterwards, I hung out in one of the waiting rooms, kept company by a wonderful friend who had been there for me since that morning.  Once the breathing tube was removed and he was awake, I got to see him, talk to him and even feed him those aforementioned ice chips.  I knew he was doing well when he asked if he could have his phone.  The next visitation time was another three hours away so instead of waiting, I headed home and ate an “anniversary dinner” by myself consisting of cookies and candy.  The “storm” was starting to let up but was by no means over.