so...this week has been abnormal.

i received a panicked phone call from my mom on monday as i was walking out the door to go to lunch. she told me that she needed me to meet her at arlington memorial hospital immediately...because my dad was there. all she knew was that he was having heart trouble and after having both grandfathers pass away from heart attacks, i was thoroughly freaked out. my amazing roomie (and coworker), kristy, drove me to the hospital just to be safe. i got to the cardiac intensive care unit and found my dad's room, my mom was already there. he was in the bed, hooked up to all sorts of machines. he smiled at me when i walked in and held his hand out to me, i took it and proceeded to cry just because i was so relieved to see him well. so here's what happened, according to my daddy:

he had just finished working out, as he usually does every day. when he was stretching, he felt a really intense pain in his chest along with nausea like he'd never felt before. he didn't want to go anywhere all sweaty and gross, so he took a shower (he says you can't go to the ER with dirty underwear). thinking that the pain was very unusual, he drove himself to the hospital. once he parked, he waited for a few minutes because the pain began to lessen and he thought it would be silly to waste people's time on a simple case of heartburn. but luckily, he went in anyway. as soon as he said the words "chest pain", he was whisked away in a wheelchair for an EKG, which revealed some trouble. he said that after the 2nd EKG, everyone was in full force, swarming and scrambling around him like all the doctor shows you see on TV. they told him that he had either just had a mild heart attack or he was about to, so they went to work on the blockages. he had 2, so they put in 2 stints up through his groin. no surgery, which was great. by the time my mom and i arrived, the whole ordeal was over and he was fixed up. we later found out (this morning) that it was indeed a heart attack but there was no permanent damage, which means that he'll be able to be back in the cockpit in about 6 months. he'll have to do cardiac rehabilitation for the next 6 weeks (which will probably be a joke since he works out every day and is in incredible shape), but he is good to go.

it's so strange, though. my dad is one of the healthiest people i know: he exercises every single day, eats pretty healthy and is really active...low blood pressure, low cholesterol...this whole thing is attributed to family history. it was so odd being in that intensive care unit, seeing all the other patients who were extremely old, decrepit, immobile. my dad didn't belong there. older, more sickly people have heart attacks. not fred.

but i guess that's the difference with my dad. after he has a heart attack, he's just hanging out in the room, cracking jokes, walking around the unit asking for pudding and listening to music to drown out the incessant beeping of all the monitors. he really is amazing. he actually felt BAD about inconveniencing people.... what a kook.

we are so lucky that he was at home when this whole mess happened and not on a trip or in the air. God was really looking out for him (and my mom and me) on this one. we're really excited that he gets to come home tomorrow. thanks to everyone who was and is praying for him and my family this week. we really appreciate all the support and love and feel so blessed to have amazing people to lean on.

oh yea...and the hospital was the first time i saw my parents after getting my tattoo, which they found out about after a while. not exactly how i wanted that to go down...but what can you do?

love/miss/namaste.