This week, life surprised us. You would think after being married for 25 years, raising three kids, and working since we were both 15, not much under the sun could catch us off guard. Wednesday morning that changed. Michelle did something she has not done in all of our years of marriage and teaching: she specifically asked me to stay home with her and drive her to a doctor’s appointment.
And here’s the thing, with the craziness going on right now in public schools with burned out teachers barely hanging on working to fix society’s ills, unmotivated students unable to be separated from their phones, and a lack of substitutes to cover classes when exhausted and sick teachers stay home, I paused when she asked me. I thought about my colleagues and administrators that might be unpleasantly affected by my absence. I thought about my students and the lessons I had planned for the day. I thought about the system we have in place to call in absences and how I had already missed the deadline. I thought about everything and every detail except that my beautiful wife was making a simple request which she never does.
After pausing for a few minutes, I said I would stay home and come with her to the appointment. She reached out and held my hand and rolled over and tried to sleep until the appointment that was scheduled for 10:30 a.m arrived.
Well, she didn’t sleep, because she couldn’t. What I didn’t know was that she hadn’t slept at all because her heart was racing all night. She had experienced this about 10 days ago but it had gone away. It only lasted a few hours. This night, her heart started racing about 9 pm and it was still going when she asked me to come with her to the doctor’s office.
Note to every spouse and partner reading this: When your significant other asks for something they have never requested before, do not pause. Do not pass GO and collect $200. Simply say, “Yes, absolutely.” Everything else will work its way out.
Now, without disclosing a 10 page medical history here, Michelle has high blood pressure and has always had a high pulse rate. Her doctor says it’s genetic and runs in the family. It is controlled by medicine and she lives a normal, mostly happy life.
We show up to the doctor’s office expecting a couple of questions, a check of the blood pressure, maybe a tweak to some medicine, then we’ll leave and go out to lunch afterwards and call it a day.
Instead, Michelle’s doctor asks the nurse to run an EKG on her and afterwards returns to us and in his wonderfully calm doctor’s voice says, “I am calling an ambulance to take you to the hospital. Something is going on with your heart and we can’t risk the damage that could possibly be happening.”
The next thing I know, my beautiful wife is on a stretcher rolling out of the doctor’s office for her first ambulance ride in 50 years and due to COVID I can’t ride with her. If her heart was racing before, I can tell you now, it is off the charts at this point. I follow the ambulance to the hospital and the next 24 hours will be one heck of a roller coaster.
Obviously, we are still processing everything and we are incredibly grateful to her doctor and his office staff (including one of my former high school students❤️💙💚) for making quick decisions and getting us the care Michelle needs to make sure she can keep writing these essays. 😂❤️
Now, before I get in trouble, I didn’t aim to write this essay about Michelle and what’s going on with her heart. She is going to barely let me publish this I can tell you that. She is a mostly private person, and does not like her business out in the world. Her observations and reflections? Yes! Her health matters? I’m already on thin ice!
What I wanted to write this essay about was what we observed while in the hospital for 24 hours.
If you’d asked me before this week, who has the toughest and most important job on the planet, without hesitation, I would’ve said public school teachers.
But, ladies and gentlemen, in this current moment of time, I believe nurses may now take the title. Yes, it is very tough being a public school teacher this year, and last year wasn’t easy either. However, to be a nurse over the past two years in an Emergency Room, during COVID, is beyond what words can accurately convey. We caught a GLIMPSE of what they have endured and what they are still enduring and what they regularly endure even without COVID and it’s the work of saints and angels. The range of the human experience they encounter every day and night on their long shifts is the stuff mere mortals cannot bare. Moaning sufferers in beds in the hallways, ungrateful patients, drug-addled 2 a.m. hand offs by the police, truly desperate, frail, lonely, and sick elderly visitors, incessant beeping and poorly maintained equipment, lack of staff, shortages of co-workers, uncovered shifts, unforgiving hours, and a very stressed out and traumatized general population, the nurses are seeing it all. The strength, the fortitude, the resolve, the love, the patience, and the commitment they have shown deserves the appreciation and respect from every one of their fellow citizens.
As for Michelle, we are home now and grateful for everything and everyone. After a battery of tests, the doctors at the hospital ruled out our worst fear, a heart attack, which was wonderful news. She has appointments next week with a cardiologist and her doctor. We are blessed that what she has going on will likely be able to be managed through medicine.
Within the first minute of arriving home from the hospital, Michelle made me take down all of the Halloween decorations. I didn’t pause and I didn’t ask questions. I just boxed them all up in the garage before I even unpacked the hospital bags. She wanted no signs or thoughts of death. No bones or zombies, or spirits. Nothing. She had had enough of that in her own mind for the last few days.
This year, we will be embracing Thanksgiving early. Time to celebrate family, friends, comfortable chairs, good food, time off, and health with grateful hearts for all the wonderful things we have in this short life.