6/22/09 - H Day 2

“I am sorry to have to tell you this, but your mother is having a heart attack.” – ER doc

P and I had gotten mom on the ambulance and raced to her car to follow them to the ER. We got to the hospital, found our way around and waited for someone to get us as they were “still working on her.” We both uneasily, but thoroughly, convinced ourselves that it was food poisoning or indigestion or a panic attack. Even in the face of text book heart attack symptoms, we worked hard to find all remotely plausible alternative explanations. But they led us back to her room, where they were indeed still working on her, and the very nice ER doc kneeled down before me and crushed my illusions with a huge frying pan of reality.

P and I looked at each other and immediately started in on planning mode. How would we get my dad here? Where should we have her transferred to (the hospital didn’t have the facilities she needed for treatment)? What mode of treatment should we authorize immediately?

In the end we chose a brand new cardiac unit about an hour outside of Denver, where they would transport her to and a blood clot busting drug called Retavase which would be her best bet given how much time had already passed. I was going to book my dad a plane ticket for first thing in the morning and P would pick him up from the airport in Denver. J would help me pack up our hotel room and book the ticket. I would follow P in my mom’s car to the new hospital.

So many details and nowhere in any of those choices was there an answer to the simple question of whether my mom was going to be ok. The hospital in Laramie didn’t even possess the facilities to tell me the severity of the heart attack. Only that immediate action was warranted and they wanted her on the road ASAP.

I ticked through my check list as quickly as possible and got in the car, trying not to think, chain smoking and trying to figure it all out.