The Morning After the Great Fall dawned with the promise that all that hospital stuff was behind us.  Ron would NOT fall again.  It was about 8:30 and Ron had just finished reading his Bible sitting in his favorite chair in the family room.  I went in to ask him something when he started to complain about pain in the left side of his chest, his left elbow and the left side of his jaw.  Well, as I had incredibly quick thinking I pointed out to him that those were all the areas that received the trauma of the fall the previous day.  But of course they are also heart attack symptoms.  Ron remained resolute in his thinking that he could possibly be having a heart attack.  I was unconvinced, but I gave him an aspirin and called 911.

Ron’s plan was to follow our neighbor’s lead.  Norm had called 911, they came and checked him out, told him he was fine, and left.  However, when the thorough and very nice paramedics checked Ron out they said, “Hmmm, we think he needs to be checked out at the hospital.”  So, we were off for yet another day at the Redmond Hospital.

At first, after an ekg and blood work they said Ron was free and clear, but before we could leave they needed blood work done once more, hours later.   That was when they found the indication he’d had a small heart attack.  [Déjà vu again!  The first time Ron had his major heart attack leading to a triple by-pass I kept telling him he was NOT having a heart attack.  Oh well, so I won’t go to medical school.]

They whisked him away by ambulance to the larger Bend hospital while I ran home for supplies and then joined him.  What fun, I got to sleep on the hard bench in his hospital room.  Rather than sleep, I should say, I got to wake up every hour when the nurse came in to check Ron’s vitals.

What will be the outcome when they do an angiogram the next day?    A stent?  Surgery?  A lobotomy? [Ron flunked his last angiogram all those years ago and opted for open heart surgery instead.]  Stay Tuned for the exciting conclusion.

As far as Ron’s health goes, one of his malapropisms gives a good description:  “It’s been a calamity of errors. “