When you wake up in the morning, you just never know what to expect.
You’ll be going along, everything nice and smooth, and then out of the blue, you hit a bump or two.
I haven’t written in a while.
I hit one of those bumps—big time.
On October 7th, I was babysitting T while getting the kids ready for school.
Uncle called from his cell phone.
He told me not to worry, but he’d started feeling really bad around 2 a.m. and had driven himself to the ER.
He thought he might’ve had a heart attack, but although the hospital gave him blood thinners and aspirin, the ER didn’t act too concerned.
Uncle was a medic in the Army—he has some medical training.
He’s not a lay person making wild guesses.
He didn’t want me to try to come up—he was sure it was nothing—but he did want me to know where he was, so I wouldn’t worry.
It scared me to death.
I called T’s grandma, explained the situation, and told her I was taking T on to school, even though it was way too early for school to be starting.
The doors would be open, and the staff would be there.
I called Husband at work to let him know what was going on and that we were heading to Rogersville.
I sent Son3 over to the school to tell Son2 to come back home—he’d already left to catch the bus to the high school.
Thankfully, Son1 was running late and still home, so we piled everyone into his car.
I practically threw T out at the school—but I was responsible enough to find the principal, explain the situation, and have her take over the boy.
Then we headed up the road.
It takes an hour to drive up, so by the time we got there, they had moved Uncle to a room.
Their diagnosis was bronchitis.
Of course, these were the same people who sent Mother home with a sinus infection—when in reality, she had a honking big brain tumor.
Well, we were there over two hours, and I knew the kids were hungry—I hadn’t had time to feed them.
We hadn’t seen any doctors or nurses the whole time we were there, so I went to the nurse’s station and asked the nurse if Uncle had had a heart attack.
She said no—there were no signs that he’d had a heart attack, and his blood work didn’t show anything concerning.
They were keeping him overnight for observation, but he looked OK.
So I figured he was stable, and it was safe for us to run out the road for breakfast—there’s a McD and a KFC just past the hospital.
We first went to Uncle’s house to make sure everything was unplugged and the doors were locked.
Aunt BB lives in an apartment about three or four miles from him—she’s 93—so we checked on her too.
Someone has to check in.
After that, we finally got food.
We barely made it through the KFC buffet line when Uncle called me.
A new doctor had come in to check on him, and they were rushing him to Kingsport.
He had actually had an acute heart attack.
I asked the cashier for boxes and a bag, and we slung our plates in and rushed back to the hospital.
They were hurrying him into an ambulance as we arrived.
I called his sister, and she said she was on her way—she had to drive from Knoxville up to Kingsport.
We headed on up the road.
The man sat in the ER for over four hours, he was in the hospital proper for about two hours, and the stupid idiots couldn’t tell he’d had a heart attack?
It’s just luck that he managed to get the new doctor when he did.
So when we got to Kingsport, they already had him in the Cath Lab, getting him prepped to go back into surgery to put stents in.
He really wasn’t in very long—M had just arrived when they brought him out.
They told us they couldn’t do stents.
He was between 80% and 100% blocked, and he had six arteries that would need to be repaired.
They had him scheduled for bypass surgery.
He was scared, and it didn’t help matters any that this happened almost exactly three months to the day that Mother died.
We saw that he got a room, and then we had to leave.
On the way down, we stopped by his house to turn the lights on and headed back home.
I chose to keep the kids out of school—Uncle needed us with him.
It would’ve made more sense to stay at Uncle’s house—it’s much closer to Kingsport—but we didn’t feel comfortable there alone.
To be frank: I will never spend a night by myself at his house.
Long story, and it goes into an area a lot of people think is pure b.s.—but I grew up in that house, and I will never, ever spend a night there alone.
On the 8th, we met with Uncle’s surgeon and his anesthesiologist.
Neither anticipated any trouble—they said Uncle was a good candidate for surgery.
Husband came up, and we all spent the night at Uncle’s house.
On the 9th, we were up by 5:30 a.m., hoping to get to the hospital in time to see Uncle before they took him to surgery.
We made it to Kingsport by 6:30, but they’d already taken him down.
M came up and sat with us.
They gave us a pager, and every two hours we got updates on his progress.
He was out of surgery by 1 p.m., and we were allowed to see him not long after.
He looked rough, but the surgery went well.
He was still full of tubes—including the breathing tube—and still out of it from the anesthesia, but he did acknowledge us.
He knew we were there.
M had to get back home, but we stayed a while longer, which turned out to be a good thing.
Uncle started having trouble with his blood pressure dropping, and that didn’t resolve until the next day.
Once we were sure he was OK, we went on home.
On the 10th, we went back up to see Uncle.
He was doing good and in good spirits.
He was having pain, of course—they’d split his chest open and taken veins from his legs.
But his color was good again, and he was in pretty decent spirits considering.
He’d been rather gray for a while.
On the 11th, it was my hometown’s Heritage Days.
We went up and walked around a bit, but my heart wasn’t in it.
Heritage Days was something Mom always looked forward to every year—and one of the last words she ever spoke to me was “Heritage Days.”
She meant she wanted us all to get together.
She was looking forward to it.
We used to go up on a Friday and stay until Sunday, walking around town and just having a blast.
Without her—it had no meaning.
Of course, we saw Uncle, and he was slowly improving.
On the 12th, we had to head home—I couldn’t keep the kids out of school any longer.
Uncle was doing as well as could be expected, but he didn’t know when he’d be released.
On the 13th, Uncle called and said they were releasing him, so I had to get Son3 and Daughter out of school.
I left the two high schoolers in—they’re old enough to manage on their own.
I had to get Cowboy off work, and then we headed up.
Before they’d release Uncle, they made us watch a video on his recuperation.
He’d need someone with him 24/7 for the first two weeks.
For six weeks, he couldn’t do anything—no lifting, no driving, no housework.
Full recovery would take six months.
There was no other choice: he had to come home with us.
I couldn’t live with him, and he couldn’t afford a full-time caretaker—so we brought him home.
We stopped at his house, got him packed, and let him make calls to his neighbors so they’d keep an eye on the place and get his mail.
Then we headed home.
And that’s where we are now.
Life is busy and a little bit chaotic, but we’re managing.
