The snow had just started to fall when we left church on Sunday. The forecast had called for a mixture of snow, sleet and freezing rain for some of the day, and it had held off until we were headed home. I was grateful. Winter weather, even though I’m used to it and grew up with it, makes me all kinds of nervous. Too many inexperienced drivers. Too much throwing caution to the wind.
I got into the van where my husband and kids were waiting for me. My husband seemed angry. Or maybe he was just tired. I couldn’t really tell. We drove home in relative silence. At the house, I ushered the kids into the kitchen to pick something for lunch while my husband retreated to the couch.
It wasn’t long before he found me in the kitchen and told me the chest pain he’d been having off and on for a couple of days was the worst he’d felt. He was worried. He wanted to know what I thought about going to the hospital.
My husband is 36, not old but certainly not out of the realm of possibility for heart problems. Just 10 days prior, his father had open heart surgery. It was weighing on all of our minds. We decided to proceed with rational caution. He called the 24-hour nurse line and described his symptoms. We thought maybe his new workout regime could be the culprit, but we didn’t want to assume this pain was nothing.
He hung up the phone and said, “Let’s go to the ER.”
Because my husband is a veteran, the closest ER is a 45-minute drive from our house. And on this day, the weather was tricky. And I had to drive because what if it was his heart?
Before we left, as we gathered our things and asked the children to pack a small bag for entertainment, I typed a quick text to friends of ours who lived in the same county as the VA hospital. I explained the situation. “Are you available to meet us there to pick up the kids?”
The reply was a swift and emphatic “YES!”
Hannah Rodrigo via Unsplash
Read the rest of this post at Putting on the New, where I write on the 12th of each month.
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