Episode Six: LOVE LIFE

Carolynn:  In the last episode Dave was being wheeled out by paramedics as his

 heart failed him.

Carolynn:  When I arrived at the Emergency Room, they told me my husband was in surgery and directed me to the crowded ER waiting room. I sat.  I text my daughter in Michigan—time was a verb as it moved slowly. Eventually, a nurse in green hospital garb strolled in, called my name, and announced cheerfully, while many other sad, concerned people turned to look, “We saved your husband’s life. He’s in recovery. Follow me.”  She smiled like she had won the lottery.

 My shoulders lifted, I stood up and my legs moved forward. Her white Crocks beat a  squeaking but comforting rhythm as they hit the linoleum floor walking down the teal painted corridor with the waist high white bumper strips following us on the wall, down the hall and around the corner and through the double doors.

 When I entered the critical care cubicle I see my husband sitting up, smiling, and sipping apple juice with a straw. The leads for the heart monitor   decorated his hospital gown like jewelry and a single IV line dripped drops of drugs into his arm. “Hi, Sweetheart,” he said as I kissed him on the cheek.

Carolynn:  In the next instant his head fell back, the apple juice spilled across his gown, and alarms started blaring. As if the white ceiling tiles were talking, the intercom blasted the marching orders for the emergency team: “code blue, code blue.” For a moment, it reminded me of the old announcements in K-Mart of, “Blue Light Special.”

Pushing me out of the room without a word, a nurse grabbed my hand and led me to the CCU waiting room just down the hall as medical staff rushed past us in the opposite direction. I didn’t need a word from her; I knew what was happening. Dave was in full cardiac arrest. Unbeknownst to me, he had already had two cardiac arrests on the way to the hospital. This was his third visit with death; with the Widow Maker. I’m glad that I didn’t know that only about 10% of individuals in this condition survive even one cardiac arrest.

 The nurse exited quickly with the glass doors closing softly behind her saying they would call me on the wall phone.  I stood there. My body didn’t know what to do.  Words played in my head to the musical beat of a heart:

Why us, why us,

 Not now, not now,

Don’t die, don’t die.

[Insert Barbershop Tag: Who’ll Dry Your Tears When I’m Gone]

I felt like a retail store dummy standing in the display window with my fake face showing no emotion. A woman in the waiting room whispered to her friend that her husband’s surgery was delayed because there was an emergency; “some radio guy needed the room.” I turned to her, seeing for the first time that there were others in the sterile, cold waiting room, and said to her “that’s my husband.” She and her friend melted into the wallpaper and left soon after.

 At some point I noticed that I was alone.  So alone, so numb in a room devoid of any tangible signs of life except for the hum of the air conditioner and the rapid beating of my heart. He can’t die I told myself over and over through the long night of nothingness. He survived Vietnam for God’s sake, this can’t be happening. The night evaporated slowly, the clock marking the hours with a nagging tick while I sat on the squeaky plastic sofa drinking bitter black coffee. I was hungry and I was shivering. Why are hospitals so cold? Why didn’t I bring a sweater? The sun rose hours later and the room filled with natural light and welcomed warmth. The ever silent phone on the wall started ringing startling me out of my 12 hour coma.  I picked up the receiver with a shaky hand, dreading the news. For the first time, I actually thought my husband might be dead and I realized that I hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye. Into my defrosting ears a nurse told me Dave was stable and I could see him soon. This was the first contact I had had with the medical staff since being thrown out of the CCU room the night before.

Carolynn:  “He’s doing fine and we’ll take him off the ventilator soon,” the nurse announced as I re-entered his cubicle. “It was close, a busy night, we had to shock him over 40 times, but we were determined not to give up,” she said.

 The hospital staff believed a miracle had visited them because in their experience, no one survives three cardiac deaths.  The blocked artery must be unblocked within 90 minutes which usually makes survival remote. Although he was without oxygen several times for brief periods, since he was joking with them and even remembered all their names, the staff believed he had suffered no cognitive loss.

Carolynn:  The female nurses were all a twitter when the EMS Supervisor Big John showed up to visit my husband the next day. John was not only gorgeous to gaze upon, but also considerate and kind; a gentle giant at 6 feet 4 inches and he had saved my husband’s life. Many of the other caregivers who participated in the event also paid Dave a visit.  They explained to me that they see so much death that seeing a “miracle” brought meaning back into their work and life back into their smiles. Dave told his cardiologist, who had done the stent surgery, and then worked through the night to revive him, “thanks for not stopping after 39 attempts.” Somehow my daughter Christine had a feeling that something was wrong even before I called her from the hospital. Here is her account of that:

[Insert tape as below]

Christine:  On the afternoon of my oldest’s birthday Olivia we were driving to the birthday and I had a very uneasy feeling and I couldn’t figure out where the sense of dread was coming from. Rob’s parents were there and his Mom was not feeling well and I assumed it was that. And then I found out when I go in the car to drive home that Dave had had a massive heart attack.

Carolynn:  Dave came home after a few days later. We were invited to have lunch several times at the Oak Park Fire Station No. 36 with the team who saved his life. They were now family to us. There were articles in the newspaper about his experience (I wrote one of them) because the Ventura County Fire Department was on a campaign to obtain the new 12 lead EKG machines for every EMS vehicle. These machines, invented in 1895 by Alexander Graham Bell, for which he received the Nobel Prize, are also called ECG’s. Dave was actually the survival story at that year’s 11th annual EMS Conference. During this event, when his EKG was shown on the screen, there was a communal gasp in the room. On the screen, the practitioners in the room saw the tale tell “tombstone” tracing on the EKG print out. After the presentation was over, we got to meet Emily, the 911 operator who had taken my call that day.

Emily asked me, “How did you remain so calm?”

I replied, “I have four kids, so I’ve had training.” 

Dave later called me his “first, first responder” in the scrapbook he made about his heart attack.

Carolynn:  In a basket of flowers he received while he was at home recovering, the florist inserted a small Mylar balloon that said, “Get Well.” Long after the flowers were thrown out, the balloon remained a fixture in our home. Dave said a few years later, looking at the balloon propped up on his desk, “if that balloon ever loses air, then I’m in big trouble.” This is the balloon I talked about in an earlier episode.  Although he wanted to return to work after his heart attack he was easily tired. Continuing an hour drive each day to work and back in addition to a stressful, high alert demanding job, seemed out of reach for Dave. He decided to hang up his headset and retire. He sent a note to his friends and colleagues in which said:

[Insert recording as below]

Male Voice: It’s been nice months since my heart attack, which was followed closely by several episodes of sudden cardiac death and a host of other complications that left me disabled and forced my early retirement. I have not said enough about my nearly twenty five years at KNX and how much it meant to me. It was much more than a job. I can honestly say that I never enjoyed anything as much as going to work each day at “that 10-70 spot on your AM dial.” Leaving KNX and more importantly, leaving you has been very difficult. The only think better than working with talented people is working with talented friends. That’s what made going to work each day truly enjoyable. Many of you are like brothers and sisters to me. A few have been like mothers and fathers, and a growing number of you are like sons and daughters. Each and every one of you is special in your own way and getting to know you has been an absolute joy. During the dark days and weeks following my “episode,” your cards, letters, emails, phone calls and special visits with expressions of support, boosted my spirits immeasurably. I also felt the power of your prayers. In many respects, that was the best medicine I received. I’ll never forget your kindness. So now the time has come to say goodbye. Please take good care of yourselves and be kind to each other. Dave.

Carolynn:  Dave and I purchased a home in Arizona so we could be near our western family and stay warm in the winter. At the same time, we refurbished the condo in Novi, Michigan where we planned to spend our summers, also to be near family. We became snowbirds. Crossing the country twice each year in our new 6 person Chrysler Van for ten years.

Carolynn:  On the fifth anniversary of his heart attack, I secretly arranged for his friends to send email to an account I set up for the occasion. The log in was “and the beat goes on,” with the password “five alive.” He received about a hundred well wishes from colleagues and friends for his continued good health as he passed the second critical milestone (the first one being the one year mark.) Every time he visited his cardiologist, he asked, “Doc, how long do I have.” And after Dr. Foster cogitated for a minute, trying to put the correct, encouraging words together, he said, “I’ll give you another five years and then we’ll talk again.” For thirteen years Dave’s heart functioned normally, as if half his heart muscle hadn’t died the day of his heart attack. He had a normal change out of his ICD (pacemaker/defibrillator) three times when the batteries were depleted, but it had never gone off; he never had another heart event.  He was never sick. His Mylar balloon was still inflated.

[Insert recording as below]

Male Voice:  Happy 15th Anniversary Sweetheart! It doesn’t seem possible that fifteen years have passed since our wedding day. When you’re having fun, they say, that happens. We certainly have had some fun. Some rough spots as well, but nothing we weren’t able to work through. With this as a foundation, the next fifteen should be easy. Let’s do this again in 2025. You’ll still be my sweetheart and I’ll be your faithful partner in all things, always. Your forever love, Dave.

Carolynn:  Dave and I kept a couples journal after retirement. Oh, I still kept my diary but this was something else. We left the journal on the kitchen counter and each of us would occasionally express our thoughts or our frustrations. Here is an excerpt from 2011:

July 24   I write: “Still in love. Fall in love all over again several times a week. Thank you for your care and patience with me during all my days of not feeling good. You are so patient. I am one lucky girl to have you.”

August 9th I write: “Guess my husband doesn’t care. After asking him many times to write in this book, he can’t be bothered.” Then Dave writes:

[Insert recording as below]

Male voice: “My dear Carolynn, your husband is a fool! If I were married to you I would write you love notes every day for as long as we lived. Leave him at once and spend the rest of your life with me. I will cherish you, worship you and adore you every waking minute of my life. We will have many happily-ever-afterings, I promise you. Love always from your secret admirer.”

Carolynn:  Several days later I write: “Thank you for the roses. I am sorry I got an allergy attack and we then had to throw them out but you earned many brownie points! My whole tooth-root-canal nightmare was made better. XXOO.” Then Dave writes:

[Insert recording as below]

Male Voice: “You are my reason for living, I swear to the heavens above and if the world were mine for the giving, you would have all of its riches and love.”

Carolynn:  I wrote back: “Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.”

This couple’s diary was where we worked out issues in our marriage rather than argue and since we were both writers/journalists, it worked for us. By writing our concerns down and revising them, it prevented us from letting words erupt in anger that we could never pull back. My daughter Christine speaks about Dave’s feelings toward me and why he was so patient with me.

[Insert tape of Christine as below]

 Christine: “   So, one day my mom was being particularly, um, curt with Dave and I just looked at him and I said, “Oh my gosh, why don’t you just tell her to shut up?”

 And he looked sort of offended and he said, “well, Christine, I couldn’t possibly. She’s my sweetheart. I’ve loved her my whole life.” I couldn’t argue with that.

Carolynn:  For Christmas in 2015 Dave wrote the following letter for our cards:

[Inert recording as below]

Male voice:  It’s our 20th anniversary. Here’s a look at our life during the past 20 years…a very MOVING experience. After I moved from California to Michigan, we moved from Michigan to California, from California to Arizona, from Arizona back to Michigan (partially), and now we’re getting ready to move the rest of our stuff to Michigan—that would make eleven round trips, some 45 thousand miles driven while struggling to maintain two homes. Between us we have had a heart attack,  A Fib, 3 Cardiac deaths, three cardiac implant procedures, 2 liver operations, a gall bladder removed, a kidney stone pulverized, a stroke (maybe), a fractured foot (definitely), more vaccinations than we can count, more colonoscopies than we want to remember, and diarrhea from more bad meals in Albuquerque, Amarillo, and Joplin than anyone should endure. All this while maintaining two homes. On the plus side: we have added eight wonderful grandchildren to the list of one that we began with; lots of nieces and nephews, and we have been able to maintain the two homes. Many good times and a few not-so-good times---hills and valleys, detours and high-speed lands, and lots of construction zones. Through it all, an enduring love that began with a kiss under the mistletoe more than a half century ago and continues today. I am really looking forward to the next 20 years.

Carolynn:  Dave and I began cruising after his retirement. We completed eleven cruises, one as long as 45 days to the South Pacific and became four star customers of Holland America. We met so many wonderful friends and were often the only ones not to be seasick in some really rough seas. No matter where we cruised, the South Pacific was our favorite destination. Dave’s magical place was a small atoll on the equator called Fanning Island. My favorite place was TONGA.

On our 21st anniversary in 2016, Dave wrote to me saying:

[Insert recording as below.]

Male Voice: Twenty-one years after marrying you, I am a much better man, and it’s all because of you. I am less of a procrastinator, trying to take care of business in a more timely manner. I am financially responsible for the first time in my life. I am more understanding of your wants and needs. I love that you are what I am not and that I can be for you what you need. At the same time I know that I am still a work in progress. We are so good for each other. We make sacrifices for each other and make compromises for each other and do things for each other. I know that that’s a big part of what love is all about. The years have passed so quickly and we’ve seen many changes in our lives but I wouldn’t change where we are or the people we have become. Not one bit. I don’t know what I’d be, or where I’d be, or even if I would be without you. You have been there for me, supporting me in a big way through this past, very eventful year and it is reassuring to know that we can handle anything that 2017 may bring us. I love you. I always have and I always will. Happy Anniversary, sweetheart.

Carolynn:  In February of 2018, we cruised again to the South Pacific by way of Hawaii. We felt it might be our last cruise, we were getting older and some of the thrill of traveling was being replaced by transportation frustrations and fatigue. Dave had his ICD replaced right before this last cruise since the battery was once again at its replacement level. And shortly after returning, I had an outpatient heart procedure. We were feeling more like grandparents than happy vagabonds, so we planned a more settled life in Michigan for our retirement having sold the home in Arizona. In our Christmas letter the previous December we noted and looked forward to the events coming up: two wedding showers for grandchildren, two weddings for grandchildren, our 75th birthdays and our 25th wedding anniversary. We were already making plans. Our “fixing up” the condo was ongoing: new kitchen, refurbished wooden floors, and new paint throughout. Dave seemed tired after our last cruise so we slowed down a bit, but continued our projects. Then, in mid-July of that year, working outside, Dave and I carefully placed fake rocks to form a border around the shrubs in front of our condo. We kept moving them until finally I deemed they were perfect.   He seemed a little dizzy while we were working but insisted he was fine. So, when he entered the hospital with low blood sugar a few days later, I expected, at most, an overnight stay until they figured out why he was presenting with these symptoms. The on call doctor took me aside several hours later after the initial x-ray results were read. “Your husband will never leave the hospital,” he told me.

* * * * * * * *

Carolynn:  Lights, camera, action. I was in the movie again. What was my character supposed to do, how was she supposed to act? Even though tears fell down my face, I stoically accepted the news and began calling relatives stepping outside his room so he wouldn’t hear me on the phone. Dave has stage IV liver cancer I told them.  The next day I called our long time cardiologist (electrophysiologist, actually) and asked him if he would be the one to tell my husband that he was dying. I wanted someone we knew, not a strange doctor Dave had never met before. So, Dr. Foster, as well as our family doctor, and Mike, the man who attended to and read his ICD printouts every three months, crowded around his bed. They were all crying! I tried never to cry in front of my husband, but my brother and his wife, who had flown in immediately from Phoenix, and my daughter and her family were having a hard time stifling their emotions. In some kind of numb, zombie state I cared for Dave during the day, kept him comfortable, played his favorite music, and tried to engage him in conversation about what was happening. He would just make a joke or fall asleep. I slept in his room every night and the first thing every morning I would lean over in front of him and ask him, do you know who I am? He would answer,” my sweetheart.” His condition was going downhill rapidly, he was not eligible for hospice care and after a few days he could barely speak. He kept asking me, “When are my brothers coming?” Every day he would ask. He had spoken to them on the phone only once and it was with a labored breath. I would tell him they’ll be here in a few days, even though the doctor had told me he didn’t think Dave would live long enough to see them when they arrived.  He was visited by my daughter and son in law who often stayed with him so I could run home for a shower, and my oldest son, his wife and my two granddaughters and all four of my grandsons were also regular visitors. His best friend from California, Jack flew out to see him as soon as he received word. Ten days after entering the hospital, as I stood beside his bed holding his hand, he said:

[Insert recording as below]

Male Voice:  “You are the love of my life.”

Carolynn:  Then he died. These were the last words he spoke. This time when his heart stopped, he stayed dead.

[Insert Barbershop Tag, The Shadow of Your Smile] [Fade out]

[pause]

Carolynn:  Thanks again to my friend for voicing Dave’s cards and letters and his last words to me. Thank you to my daughter for her voiced recordings. Also, thanks again to the Barbershop Harmony Society for the tags used in this episode. Ending this episode I play a clip from Dave’s brother Bill’s recording of Over There In Paradise.

Carolynn:  In the next Episode, which I call Forever Love, I reveal the woes and weeping of a new widow, and share the love and support I received from a Marine “band of brothers” who along with a couple other individuals saved my life.

[music fade in and out; Paradise.]