I hope everyone is well and surviving this horrible Covid 19 Virus. My heartfelt sorrow is with those impacted by it with the loss of a loved one. Loss changes lives.
Something I haven’t been able to tell many people changes our lives in a dramatic way. Two years ago, now almost three, I collapsed in cardiac arrest. Full blown not responsive, can’t get a pulse no real blood pressure cardiac arrest. I’d had various troubles over the years that I’d passed off as panic attacks. I’d even been in the hospital in 2014 with an ‘episode’ that couldn’t be determined cause or problem. This time they had the ‘episode’ on ekg tape and of course I was “out”.
A team of medical professionals saved my life that day. If I had been out at the farm mowing I probably would not have survived the event. As it happened I was at a truck pull event at the local county fair. The manager of the pull and his wife are EMT’s. They pulled me through. I was shocked twice in the ambulance. While I was non responsive I was still conscious, inside my head. I sometimes think I have PTSD from those shocks. LOL. Better lit up than dead though.
I ended up with a defibrillator and pace maker installed to ward off future episodes.
I’m saying all this because as traumatic as potentially dying was for me inside the ambulance…my wife didn’t know what was going on from outside the ambulance. She drove alone up to the area hospital in Asheville not knowing if she would arrive and be told that I had not survived the trip. She didn’t know anything other than I was not responsive.
There are a lot of people in that situation out there right now. Their loved ones go to the hospital. They can’t accompany them and right now they don’t know if that loved one will ever return home, or if they will get a phone call late one night that their “person” didn’t survive.
It has taken me almost three years to talk about this on this kind of public forum. My life has changed alot. I am well. However, I’m temporarily not narrating right now. But perhaps will go back to it one day in the future. I have high hopes.
J.R. Lowe Narrator 