The Most Beautiful Heart

Throughout our lives, we have events that forever shape us into the people we are from those points on. Things like an exceptional, or traumatic childhood, getting married, the death of a parent, the birth of a child. All of these things become the lens through which we view life forever, going forward.

Just such an event was unfolding for me just a few days ago, when my husband, of over twenty years, was wheeled into the cardiac cath lab at our local hospital.

Earlier, in the emergency room, we were still stunned by the words of the emergency room doctor, “We think you had or are having a heart attack.”

Dumbfounded, Paul and I just looked at each other. He was the healthiest man, of ANY age that I knew. We had over a decade each of clean, sugar free eating, daily exercise, sunlight and robust, naturally healthy immune systems under our belts. Neither of us could comprehend how this was happening to him. He had recently had a cardiac calcium score of zero and we knew his heart was free from any arterial plaque. We were stunned at this unexpected news.

“Fifteen percent of people with a zero calcium score can still have a heart attack,” the consulting cardiologist told us.

My thoughts were all over the place. I pulled from the memory catalog I personally had formed, as a former ER nurse. I recalled the many, many times I had heard a “code blue” called in the cath lab, and this increased my anxiety exponentially, as they took my husband in. I saw the dim room, lit only by monitors and a large screen, as they rolled his stretcher in. I stoically held myself together, for my husband, until the doors closed behind him. Then, I burst into tears as one of the nurses took me down the hall and talked me down. “Your husband is going to be just fine” she said. “We very rarely have codes in our cath lab and he’s got one of the best cardiologists here taking care of him.”

Instead of the large, crowded waiting room, she ushered me into a smaller “consult room” for my privacy. You don’t have to be a nurse to know what a “consult room” just off the cath lab is. It’s the room where very bad, often tragic news is typically given to family members. I was thankful it wasn’t being used at that moment, and I could take a few minutes to gather myself before going to the main waiting room. I plugged my phone in and took a few deep breaths and quickly realized I didn’t want to be alone. I called my best friend, who lives in Maine. Before I knew it, she had me chuckling and feeling like myself again. Just as we were about to say goodbye, I heard, “Code Blue Cath Lab! Code Blue Cath Lab!” over the loudspeaker.

I peered out the small window in the door and saw the staff running to the very area where MY husband was.

“No! No!” I thought quietly.

I relayed to Janice, my lifeline on the phone, the horrifying scene playing out before my eyes.

“He’s fine, Joni” she said. “He’s fine. You know how healthy Paul is.”

Gravity bent me in half and I stopped myself from falling to the floor. A wave of intense nausea and dizziness hit me with the force of a jet liner. “How can this be?” I thought to myself.

Janice was still on the other end of the phone, her voice sounding very, very far away. She was still talking to me, but I no longer heard the words she was saying.

After what felt like an eternity, the same nurse who had calmed me down before, came running into the room, almost tackling me. I knew what she was going to tell me and I didn’t want to hear the worst thing a wife could ever hear. In my head I said to myself, “No no no no no no!”

The nurse gripped me by the shoulders, “It’s not your husband! It’s NOT Paul!”

I didn’t believe her. Near hysteria, I cried, “You promise you’re not just saying that?! Do you promise me?!”

“I swear to God! Your husband is just fine! I was just talking to him myself! The code was someone else. It’s not Paul. I promise you.”

We talked more and when she was convinced that I was assured my husband was, indeed OK, she left me. It was then that I remembered that Janice was still on the phone. She had heard the whole thing, from me telling her about the code being called, staff running into the cath lab and she’d even heard the nurse come in and reassure me.

“Oh wow, she sounded like a fantastic nurse,” Janice remarked.

She was beyond a nurse for me. In that moment, that nurse was my hero.

Just then, a doctor came in with a distraught looking woman. I quickly gathered my things and left the tiny room as I said a silent prayer for her. Unlike me, she was not going to get good news.

A few minutes later, the cardiologist came to get me. He had heard that I thought it was Paul that coded. He put a comforting arm around me as he spoke the words that sounded like I had just won the lottery, “Your husband’s heart is PERFECT. There are no blockages, no plaque, his heart muscle is very healthy and very strong.”

He went on to tell me he suspected, that since Paul had been having mild, flu-like symptoms about a week earlier, this was likely a case of myocarditis. It would resolve itself and have absolutely no lasting effects at all. He would recover completely. He just wanted to confirm his suspicions with a cardiac MRI.

In the end, the cardiologists was right. Paul had myocarditis from a random virus he likely caught while on our recent Maine trip.

Today, it’s a mere four days later. After spending a night in the hospital, Paul is home, and though fatigued, feeling much, much better now.

As for me?

I won something so much more valuable than any lottery jackpot:

I have my husband, with his perfect, beautiful heart, still by my side, and that’s absolutely priceless to me!