Another hurdle

Just when you think things are going ok, oh no. Take a step back. It's like Father of the Bride Part 2 where George is happy, life is good, and then a surprise. Having struggled through our 5 year old's surgery and recovery, I was thinking life was ok. Soon, one morning as I was getting ready for work, I noticed 2 of our 4 goldfish dead. I didn't have time to deal with fishing them out and disposing of them so I left a note for my husband to take care of it when he got home. He works overnights so thinking he could do it right away in the morning before he went to bed. I went into work and got the same old same old question "hey, how's it going?" Rather then politely saying good, I instead went off on what a horrible morning I was having, looking at some disgusting dead fish floating in the tank. Like this is the end of the world, NOT! It was just the start of a really, really bad day. I knew the lesson learned is don't complain over the little things, as life can be worse. Soon after my husband got home, I got a phone call telling me to get home & asap; take him to the ER. He was having all of the symptoms of a heart attack. He's young, just turned 42 but is overweight and does smoke so I take this very seriously and rush home. After a few hours in the ER, they tell us they're moving him to a 24 observation room for his heart. They've done a blood test & have him hooked up to monitors, a little nitro here and there. My cell phone doesn't work in the ER with all of the machines and there was no phone in the room we were in, so I would periodically go out and phone home to check on our three boys at home. Our baby was in daycare so knew he was just fine. A couple hours after that I thought I better let daycare know where I am should something come up with our baby. It rarely does, but just when you think that, then something does come up. My husband of course told me I overreact, but go make the phone call anyways. I called daycare and left a message where I was but it was difficult to reach me. I then called home to check in and the boys told me daycare had called trying to reach me. Oh my gosh! Talk about panic. I called daycare's cell phone and finally got a hold of her. She was sick and needed me to pick up our baby asap. They got my husband situated in the observation room so I left my cell phone and told them I'd be back as soon as I could figure out daycare for my baby. I got home with him. My mom who is retired was on a trip out of state. I couldn't reach my sister. I had no other options. My oldest child is 13 but he hasn't mastered the whole changing diapers thing yet so I called my very nice retired neighbors to come over. They did immediately so I was able to rush back to the hospital. I did eventually get a hold of my sister who later in the afternoon came into town to pick up my four boys and take them home with her for the night. When I got back to the hospital, I was surprised to see my husband getting ready to be wheeled out of the room. Where might we be taking him? I asked. The nurse said he was experiencing quite a bit more chest pain and the doctors weren't able to monitor him as close as he needs it so they were moving him to a cardiac unit so he could be closely monitored. Why nobody bothered to call me, I don't get. So he was moved to a cardiac unit with a continuos nitro drip started. We were told they'd do a series of heart tests but wouldn't get an answer as to what it is until the following afternoon when all results were in. Wow, I'm suppose to wait a full day not knowing what is going on with my husband. How scary is that. After being up to the hospital the entire day, nothing to eat or drink, I decided around 10:30 pm to head home & get some sleep. I'm 7 minutes from the hospital and left my home and cell number with them. Once I got home, I had three dead fish to deal with and a very empty house. It has been since my child's surgery since I've had a good cry, but soon another one came on. This was the first night my baby has ever been away from me. Granted, he was10 months old, but still, I had never been away from he overnight. I couldn't sleep, which probably turned out ok as I got a call from my husband a little before midnight to come back up to the hospital as he wasn't feeling right at all.

So from complaining about a couple dead fish to a husband in the hospital, no daycare for my baby, and the first night away from my baby, this was the end to a horrible day that I'll never complain about something so petty as dead fish. I was shown life can get worse. Lesson to be learned...don't complain about the petty things or as a famous book title is "Don't sweat the small stuff". Live by that.