Words cannot describe the happiness I feel right now.

On March 24th, I was having coffee with my dad before he left for work. Which we do, every week. Well my dad is a long haul truck driver. So he could be gone from 4 days to months at a time.

Well that evening, he said he was having some chest pain, but it felt more like when you take in a cold breath of air. Well before he left he decided to go to the hospital just to make sure. As he has had a heart attack and had high/low blood pressure.( his pressure will go way up, then go way down) well he went in, they did a blood test, and low and behold. Another heart attack. Me being a massive daddy’s girl, my heart sank. Well he was in hospital for the night, his, potassium was low, so they ran a bag of potassium, the next day, he was transferred into a bigger hospital to get some test done. They did an angiogram, and when they were doing that, they saw that my dad had 3 veins in his heart which were collapsing.

So then came the scary news. He was going for a triple by pass. My heart sank. After I found that out, I cried in my car for about half an hour. Cause I knew how risky that surgery is. His surgery wasn’t scheduled until March 7th. They kept him in the hospital until then. My life then became work, hospital, sleep, repeat.

So just to clarify, went in Feb 24th, found out about surgery Feb 26th, surgery not until March 7th.

As March 7th became closer, I progressively got more stressed, more scared and just all around more anxious. He was transferred into the bigger hospital on March 6th so they can start the pre op stuff. I was at the hospital when they were about to take him away. At this point I havnt cried in front of him, I wanted to be strong for him. So witnessing him being taken away on a stretcher, was one of the worst things ever. The second he left the room, I physically fell to the ground. If it wasn’t for my best friend Lexi being there for support, I wouldn’t have gotten off the hospital floor for a while. Well for the rest of the day and the next, all I did was sleep. I was so worried and stressed. In those two days I probably slept for almost 20 hours. On March 7th, I was in and out of sleep all day until my dads surgeon called me. I was told the surgery would start at 7am, and be over at 1pm. So at 1pm when I was waiting for a call no one called. 2pm comes around, 3pm comes around. I become more and more worried. At this point I am a wreck. I am shaking, sweating and just all around terrified. 4:18pm I get a phone call from the hospital, saying my dad underwent a quadruple bypass, cause once they got in there they found one more spot that needed to be fixed. He also apologized that it was so late, but his left lung completely collapsed and his right partially collapsed. But besides those two things surgery went well and he was in the ICCU sedated and recovering. He was sedated until about 1-2pm the next day, (March 8th) He has 18 staples on his chest, and 27 staples on his legs, cause that’s where they got the veins to fix his heart.

Well today, I got to pick my dad up from the hospital and bring him home for the first time in 18 days. These past 18 days have been the most terrifying, eye opening, stressful and worrisome days of my life. In these 18 days I lost 20 pounds.

I am so beyond happy to have him home, but now comes the hard time part. Watching the recovery. Having to see the strongest man in my eyes, be in this much pain. It’s heart wrenching.

I am beyond thankful my work gave me 6 days off( March 5th to 10th). I defiantly needed them. Considering in those days, crying came and went with waves. Eating was a thing I did rarely, and sleeping was a thing I did all the time, but the stress nightmares shook me to the core.

His chest. 18 staples on the inside. Those three little cuts, are the drain tubes. And the marks beside that are where the wires came out.

His left leg. Where they took the veins.