In the blink of an eye...

It's crazy how quickly life can change. In December my dad and brothers took a trip to Vietnam and had the adventure of a lifetime. Then, in early February my dad found himself in the ER because he was having trouble breathing and could feel his heart racing. They didn't find anything significant on the first visit and after a round of anti-anxiety and blood pressure meds they sent him home. About a week and a half later it was the same thing, but this time he stayed home and "tried to relax" hoping it would go away. He spent the night sitting straight up in his recliner feeling his heart go crazy and not being able to breath well. He also had swollen up like a balloon due to water retention. The next morning they took a trip to the doctor, who sent him immediately to the hospital in Warsaw and soon after he arrived there he was taken by ambulance to the Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne.

An echocardiogram was taken and it was determined that he had a broken "chord" on his mitral valve. After a procedure to make sure there weren't additional issues or blockages (which, thankfully, there weren't) my dad went into surgery presumably to have his mitral valve replaced. The medical team said they would "try" to repair the valve first, but didn't sound too hopeful that it was possible.

When the surgery was over the doctor came to talk with my mom, Abe and Lisa, who were waiting to hear the results. He told them a few significant things about the surgery. The first was that my dad didn't have one, but four broken chords, the second was that he'd never seen a patient with a valve in that condition that wasn't brought in on a ventilator (or dead). Not only was my dad not on a ventilator, but he was also up and walking around before his surgery, and Abe even had him laughing hysterically more than once (something Abe probably wouldn't have done if he'd known the condition my dad was in). The last thing the doctor said was that they were able to repair the valve. My dad said the word he continued to was "remarkable".

I'm sure there are a lot of medical justifications you could try to give to what happened to my dad's heart, but he believes, and I do to, that he got a miracle. I am so thankful that I got to see my dad again, even though we drive each other crazy, and Moses is expecting to have his Grandpa Pete around for a long time. God is good.