Mike

Photo credit: Henry 
He loves to take pictures, and took this one on Easter.  It's the last picture of Mike prior to all of this happening.

Almost two weeks ago now, Pat’s dad, Mike, suffered a heart attack at his home.  I can say with much elation that he is now at home making a full recovery!  These last two weeks have been quite a journey.  Mike is a man that loves to journal.  Almost every day he sits at his typewriter to write about his day, what is going on in the world, or about his time in Vietnam.  Since he wasn’t able to do that for several days, I decided to journal for him.  I wrote about what happened that night, and the following several days.  I don’t know if he will ever read it, but it helped me process it all and I figured if he’s ever interested in knowing one day what it was like while he wasn’t fully with us, he could read it to get a little idea. 

I’m not going to share that journal on the blog.  I don’t worry too much about sharing information that’s too private, but since this involves more than just my little family, I want to respect them.  Plus it’s LONG.  Like, six pages long.  So, I’m pretty sure no one else would really care to read all that!

In summary…  We got a call late Thursday night that Mike had a heart attack, and his heart stopped beating, meaning he went into cardiac arrest.  Mary, Pat’s mom, started CPR, medics came and he was transported to a hospital.  When we got there, two stints were put in two of his arteries.  We waited at his bed for many days as gradual progress was made in his healing.  He was removed from a heart pump he was on, and his heart pumped well on its own.  He was removed from the breathing tube, and his body was finally able to produce enough oxygen on its own.  He was pulled out of sedation, and was able to squeeze hands and wiggle toes, indicating there wasn’t severe brain damage.  As he continued to be weaned from drugs it was clear that Mike was going to make a full recovery.  Thank the Lord!

There is so much more detail in the midst of all of this.  It was the biggest roller-coaster journey of our lives!  We are so blessed God had it work out the way it did!  I'm so glad the grandkids will have more opportunities to have story time and sword fights with their Papa.