Just Beyond The Moon
an excerpt

Chapter One – The Emergency

“DON'T DROP ME” were the last words he spoke, with pain in his upper body so fierce he could hardly tolerate it, but his humor still in-tact, while the EMT’s lifted my husband from the ambulance gurney toward the ER table. That was immediately before the lights in his eyes blurred, went out totally, and he dropped out of life. He’d been hit by a full blown, massive coronary. A severe heart attack. My darling husband had suddenly fallen into death.

Code Blue was called over the speakers in the hospital. Medical personnel from anywhere nearby literally ran to the ER, where it quickly and completely filled with doctors, nurses, and medics. Paddles were hooked up. “Clear!” Then simultaneous shocks with two paddles were heavily applied to his chest. His body shot up from the table with tremendous force. But the patient was still flat-lined. Again the doctor shouted, “Clear!” Again the two paddles were applied to his chest; his body bolted up from the table, and still there was no response on the heart monitor. No life. Still the heart was stopped. Twice more the doctor yelled and applied the paddles. Oh, God, please bring him back to life! Then suddenly, finally, the heart monitor began to beep. The heart was beating on its own. The staff had saved another human being. “Thank you, God,” they softly prayed “for helping us save this man."

That was my husband Robert on the ER table. My husband losing his life and being frantically brought back to us. All the while I waited, pacing, up and down the hallway in the ER lobby, wondering what was happening behind that door, why they wouldn’t let me in this time.

We’d had other emergencies together. In fact, one just two and a half months ago, we’d had to call 911, because Bob was bleeding internally. Little did we know before that call that he was actually bleeding to death. All due to the aspirin he was taking to thin his blood and keep it flowing easier through his bad heart. The heart that had already had several surgeries on it. A quintuple by-pass back in 1997, two stints in 2002, another stent this time in 2007, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

This emergency was the worst. Both because he had actually died for “three or four minutes” and because we had been arguing all day long. He hadn’t been feeling well all morning, but hadn't told me so. He just was impossible to please, insolent, rude, even cruel that day. This time it wasn’t just his blood sugar getting too low and his needing to eat something quickly to bring it back up and make him less irritable. That’s something that took me 30 years to put together, for doctors to verify. This time was different. He was mean. He was impossible to get along with. So we argued, about everything that day. I was fed up enough to think of moving in for a few days with our daughter’s family, though she didn’t know it yet. Neither did he, though at the time he was probably wishing it, too.

To top it off, I had practically humiliated him into finally mowing the lawn, a chore he was continually procrastinating, in time for the lawn dethatchers to return and finish what they had begun. Then to top that off, they postponed. Meanwhile Bob mowed the lawn, the entire back then front, all the time knowing he was having chest “discomfort” and fearing a heart attack. He’d been having terrible pain in the back of his neck for nearly a week, but we thought it may have been from his slumping in front of his computer. Not so, as it turned out. But he’d mowed that lawn, just to make me feel guilty and prove his point.

Sure enough, he came inside the house, tried to lie down on the bed, said it hurt worse to lie down; he took a nitro tablet, then another, and another. And still the pain would not go away. He knew he was in trouble. He began having cold sweats and chills, so he put on a clean sweatshirt, walked to the stairs above the split entry and sat down on the top carpeted step. Said he’d better get to the hospital. I was still really pissed by then, wanting to get far away from him, tired beyond words of caring for a man who was so often mean and cruel with his words. So I asked him if he could walk to the car, just about 20 feet away, inside the garage. He said, “I thought you called 911.” Just then another pain began, all the way down the inside of his right arm. Then we knew. We knew it was a heart attack. I called 911. The 911 operator had me put our two little dogs behind closed doors, to allow free movement to the EMT’s when they arrived. I remembered how difficult it was for them to get the gurney around corners and down our narrow hallway to our bedroom last time they came, so we walked together out of the house when they arrived this. Yes, we walked. I asked him if he could walk, he said yes, and he did it. Oh, God, what was I thinking? Well, I know what. That he wasn’t complaining, he didn’t seem to be incapable of walking, he was beyond wanting to mouth-off to me, so the pain must not be too bad. Our driveway is long and we walked all the way down it together. Our down the street friends from Texas later told me that she couldn’t believe it when she saw the ambulance in front of our house and us walking. She hollered to her husband, “Jim, they are WALKING down the driveway to the ambulance!” Even the EMTs allowed him to take that enormous step up into the ambulance. He seemed fine, except for holding his arm and walking slowly on my arm. Of course, they immediately laid him down and hooked up an oxygen mask to him. Then they began asking me the usual questions: “What are his symptoms? How long has he had them? What meds is he taking? What relationship to him are you? Do you want to come with him in the ambulance?” I couldn’t come with them, because I had to let the dogs out of the bedroom, so they had access to water and the doggy door. It was going to be a long day and night for sure, and it wasn’t yet 4 PM. “Please, don’t hold him up, just get him to the hospital! I’ll follow.”

The medic couldn’t get clearance for the hospital we wanted, the one where his cardiology team worked and was still on-duty. My father died of a massive coronary 30 years prior at the other hospital and my instincts told me that Bob couldn’t go there. He just HAD to get to the hospital of our choice, the hospital with the higher trained staff and newer equipment. “Please, God, you never fail us. Please let us get clearance for our good hospital.” Just then the EMT said, “We don’t have to divert, we can go to the hospital you want.” “Thank you, God, you did it again,” those were the words I whispered. You see, every time I ask God for help, He comes through. And after He does, I always thank Him for his gift.

So Bob was on his way to our chosen doctors and hospital, and it was a good thing, too, because halfway there he they gave him another nitro, that made four of them in a very short time. And he heard the one nearest him say, “Turn on the lights and siren.” The pains and stats were getting worse. Bob was pouring in cold sweat. His breathing was heavier. He couldn’t have made the trip to the other hospital, alive. This time my husband was closer to death than he had ever been and racing to the hospital at full speed trying to get there in time. Even the EMT's hearts were beating fast and their adrenalin was pumping through their veins in response to the emergency. , my friend Carolyn and I were still on the road, with her taking the long way up Harrison Blvd, because that’s the way she always took for her doctor appointments, and I was getting more and more nervous, but trying not to show it. She hadn’t wanted me to drive, but I could have driven there faster, except for the parking. At least I knew where the emergency entrance was, in the back, not the front of the hospital. We should have gone along Washington Blvd or Wall Avenue, whichever straight shot the ambulance had taken to the hospital. But my friend was a very caring person and not used to hospital emergencies. She was used to visiting the sick and was on our Methodist Church’s Nurture Committee. She was also doing her best to keep me together.

Meanwhile, the two EMTs began lifting Bob from their gurney, attempting to place him on the ER table. Everyone had been alerted; the ER, our doctors, our priest. He had just enough time to say, “Don’t drop me” and that’s when it happened. His black-out, actually flat-line, massive corony, and the full-out emergency, code blue, heart cart and the ER filled to brimming with emergency staff trying to revive him.

Bob hadn’t been feeling well all day, but hadn't told me so. He just was impossible to please, insolent, rude, even cruel that day. This time it wasn’t just his blood sugar getting too low and his needing to eat something quickly to bring it back up and make him less irritable. That’s something that took me 30 years to put together, for doctors to verify. This time was different. He was mean. He was impossible to get along with. So we argued, about everything that day. I was fed up enough to think of moving in for a few days with our daughter’s family, though she didn’t know it yet. Neither did he, though at the time he was probably wishing it, too.

To top it off, I had practically humiliated him into finally mowing the lawn, a chore he was continually procrastinating, in time for the lawn dethatchers to return and finish what they had begun. Then to top that off, they postponed. Meanwhile Bob mowed the lawn, the entire front and back, all the time knowing he was having chest “discomfort” and fearing a heart attack. He’d been having terrible pain in the back of his neck for nearly a week, but we thought it may have been from his slumping in front of his computer. Not so, as it turned out. But he’d mowed that lawn, just to make me feel guilty and prove his point.

Sure enough, he came inside the house, tried to lie down on the bed, said it hurt worse to lie down; he took a nitro tablet, then another, and another. And still the pain would not go away. He knew he was in trouble. He began having cold sweats and chills, so he put on a clean sweatshirt, walked to the stairs above the split entry and sat down on the top carpeted step. Said he’d better get to the hospital. I was still really pissed by then, wanting to get far away from him, tired beyond words of caring for a man who was so often mean and cruel with his words. So I asked him if he could walk to the car, just about 20 feet away, inside the garage. He said, “I thought you called 911.” Just then another pain began, all the way down the inside of his right arm. Then we knew. We knew it was a heart attack. I called 911. The 911 operator had me put our two little dogs behind closed doors, to allow free movement to the EMT’s when they arrived. I remembered how difficult it was for them to get the gurney around corners and down our narrow hallway to our bedroom last time they came, so we walked together out of the house when they arrived this. Yes, we walked. I asked him if he could walk, he said yes, and he did it. Oh, God, what was I thinking? Well, I know what. That he wasn’t complaining, he didn’t seem to be incapable of walking, he was beyond wanting to mouth-off to me, so the pain must not be too bad. Our driveway is long and we walked all the way down it together. Our down the street friends from Texas later told me that she couldn’t believe it when she saw the ambulance in front of our house and us walking. She hollered to her husband, “Jim, they are WALKING down the driveway to the ambulance!” Even the EMTs allowed him to take that enormous step up into the ambulance. He seemed fine, except for holding his arm and walking slowly on my arm. Of course, they immediately laid him down and hooked up an oxygen mask to him. Then they began asking me the usual questions: “What are his symptoms? How long has he had them? What meds is he taking? What relationship to him are you? Do you want to come with him in the ambulance?” I couldn’t come with them, because I had to let the dogs out of the bedroom, so they had access to water and the doggy door. It was going to be a long day and night for sure, and it wasn’t yet 4 PM. “Please, don’t hold him up, just get him to the hospital! I’ll follow.”