My uncle is going to be okay :)

I talked with Keri who explained what happened with Uncle Dennis.

This past Sunday, he went for a walk by Lake Havasu where they winter. His wife Leslie and daughter Jeni were with him. About 3 miles into the walk he had cardiac arrest. This is much more severe than a heart attack in that the heart stops beating, breathing stops, and the person goes unconscious. So Uncle Dennis goes into cardiac arrest and falls to the ground -- there were no early warning symptoms or signs, just 'kabamm' and he was down.

Jeni & Leslie call 911 and start CPR. A motorist sees what is happening, stops briefly, drives to a hotel and gets their defibrillator and brings it back. The machine verifies no pulse and allows itself to be used to shock Dennis. CPR. Another shock. The paramedics arrive. CPR. A shock from their machine. Ambulance to hospital.

They were able to save Dennis' life but he was in a coma on on a repspirator the first day. By Tuesday morning his condition had sufficiently stabilized to allow for the heart procedure to be performed. I believe that the 3 stents were placed via veins and arteries, not from a full-on chest opening. One artery was 99% clogged.

When Dennis came to, his short-term memory was gone and he kept asking about where he was, and who people were, and what was going on, and he wanted to go home. Fairly quickly (in days) improvements were seen. The doc says that he'll likely never remember the few days before and after the cardiac arrest, but his short-term memory of current events is coming back on line. He's mastered remembering breakfast, but may not remember who called from the day before.

When I talked with Keri on Thursday, she sounded great. She was so thankful to have her daddy back from the brink of death just a little bit worse for the wear. My Aunt Cris (Dennis' x-wife) is so happy for the girls that their daddy is okay (and happy for Dennis, too ;) Keri also said that where Dennis was when he had the cardiac arrest was the most fortunate of all places because he could have been where he usually is either in their RV at the park (no defibrillator) or on their boat (no defibrillator). Such a God-thing, such a very very big God-thing.

The other thing Aunt Crissy reminded us was to:
Live, Love, Laugh, Hug, Golf, Exercise, Play Bridge, BE HEALTHY!