It is God who is my helper, the heart of Love who sustains my life. - Psalm 54:6

It has been a long weekend, to say the least. One of the longest of my life.

Mark woke up very early Friday morning with pain in his chest and back. I, being the good wife that I am, told him to go back to bed. So, after 3 hours of trying to get rid of the pain he did. He woke up with the same pain Saturday morning around 2am and after unsuccessful attempts at relieving the pain, we decided he should go into urgent care. And assumed they would just give him a muscle relaxant and send him on his merry way. I half slept for the next hour or so, and dreamed that Mark had something wrong with his back and would require back surgery. So when I got a call at 4am from urgent care saying they were sending him via ambulance to the emergency room and that he had elevated heart enzymes but was fine, I thought "Oh good, I'm going back to bed".

But the lady kept talking, and calmly started giving me directions to the hospital.

"Am I supposed to go in? I have 2 kids in bed right now" I said, trying to figure out what heart enzymes were.

"Yes, I think that would be a good idea ma'am," she said.

I hung up and started walking in circles. "This can't be happening," I said out loud. I called our neighbors Doug and Lisa. They came over right away. Doug works in a cath lab, and was able to explain to me that yes, I definitely needed to get there right away, and that elevated heart enzymes can be many things - one of which is a heart attack, but hopefully it's just a panic attack.

So I hopped in my car and started driving. Do you know that White Castle is open at 4:30am? Taco Bell too. McDonald's is not. I focused on whatever I could, drove the exact speed limit in the middle lane for fear of hitting a random walker on the side of the road.

I arrived at the hospital and walked around the desk and found a nurse sitting behind the desk.

"Are you Mark Taylor's wife?" she said. Mark was the only one in there.

"Yes, I am. How is he doing?"

"It appears he has had a small heart attack."

A small heart attack. I certainly didn't expect to hear that. After all, I was ready to go back to bed when the nurse called me! I took Mark's wedding rings. They were too big for my thumbs. I really wanted them on my fingers but knew I would lose them. Reluctantly, I put them in my wallet. I walked with Mark and two nurses up to the 2nd floor, where he was going to have an angiogram to check for blockages in his arteries.

"Is there anyone we can call? A friend, or family member?" the nurse asked. The only time I have ever heard anyone on TV ask that is if someone is dying. So of course, I started crying.

"No," I replied. As did Mark.

"Okay, well we can send in the chaplain." Again, never said on TV unless it's really bad. We cried, kissed each other, and off they went. I walked into the darkest, biggest, emptiest waiting room I have ever seen. I called Mark's parents and told them what I knew - that Mark had a small heart attack. They hopped into the car and drove to our house to get directions to the hospital from Doug and Lisa. I called my dear friend Kate, who helped calm me down, and helped me to realize how lucky we are that we have people like Doug and Lisa. She's so right. Lisa was even sweet enough to bring Elisabeth to her ballet rehearsal in the morning, for which I am so thankful. Kate came to relieve Doug and Lisa and spent the day with the girls, so that Mark's parents and I could come and go as needed. I'm so lucky to also have Kate in my life. She spent the day being manipulated by two girls, playing games, playing outside, and baking cookies with Elisabeth.

After what felt like a day but was probably more like an hour, one of the nurses came into the waiting room. "Mrs. Taylor?" the nurse said.

"Yes?" I wiped the tears away from my face and tried to hide the entire box of tissues that I had just used up.

"Mark's angiogram was clear! His arteries are clear, and he did not have a heart attack!"

What a relief! I was not going to be husband-less any time soon!

So we got settled in Mark's hospital room. The heart unit was filled with old men. And Mark. It truly felt like a place we were not supposed to be. Mark's parents came in a while later and we all thanked God that Mark was okay. Mark was already on morphine (among other meds but the initial hours are such a blur) but had a lot of heartburn. He thought he just needed a 7-Up. I am fairly certain that this was the anesthesia talking, or it could be because the nurse was cute and he just wanted some nurse lovin'. Anyway, throughout the day his blood levels and his EKG still showed irregular readings, so we certainly were not out of the woods yet. Mark would need a CatScan to make sure a blood clot/pulmonary embolism was not a possibility. I went home for a while to kiss our girls and help Kate with lunch/naptime, and we all returned to visit Mark prior to the CatScan. When we walked in, Mark was in tears and his mom was rubbing his shoulders. Not knowing what was going on, I assumed Mark had just been given very bad news. However it was only that he was in the worst amount of pain yet. The next dose of morphine had not kicked in yet. I felt so bad, and also so confused. Why, if the heart was being ruled out, did he have such horrendous pain? It was in his chest, across his shoulders and in his finger and elbow joints. Aside from his pain, we had a nice visit with Mark - Elisabeth and Sydney brought cards they had made with Kate that morning, and Elisabeth picked out some flowers and balloons for her daddy. I am not sure who enjoyed the balloons more - Elisabeth, Sydney or Mark. But Mark got to keep them in the room.

Mark had some more tests (an Echo which showed nothing out of the ordinary, more EKG's and more blood work) and his CatScan - what a cool looking machine! - and that came back perfect as well. No blood clot to worry about. Thank God! Still, the question remained - what on earth was going on? Mark's primary physician had suspected that if it wasn't a heart attack or a blood clot, it could be a viral attack on the heart tissue. A viral attack? That scared us. How could that be good? So we all went to bed with many questions answered but many also unanswered.

It was such a long day. It felt like 4 days rolled into one, really. What a roller coaster. Good news, bad news, unanswered questions, worry, relief, etc. Still, as exhausted as we all were, I felt okay for the most part. I put myself on some kind of autopilot throughout the day. Of course I cried, but I also joked, smiled, kissed my husband and my kids, was a wife, a mom, everything I am supposed to be. What else can a person do when there is so much up in the air? This is one thing I have learned recently, that you need to just "relax" (so not possible) and put your trust in God. I did. I also leaned heavily on the support of friends, family, neighbors, and our pastor. For the first time in a while I accepted help. And lots and lots of prayer.

We went to bed. Exhausted. And slept as well as we could. I think Mark got the best night's sleep of all of us! ("Thanks to the morphine," he says.)

The next morning we got ready. I grabbed my 18 (okay, 5) bags of stuff which included Elisabeth's ballet recital costume and we all headed over to the hospital. Mark looked good. He was sitting in a chair, and was no longer connected to saline and Heparin drips. And yes, Mark did in fact get the best night's sleep out of all of us. Potentially better than all of us combined. The Dr. ruled out the viral attack based on extra blood tests, and the new theory was that his two preventative meds (Niaspan for triglycerides and Antara for good cholesterol) were working against each other creating an intramuscular (not necessarily heart) problem. Mark has been taking these meds for 3 years though, so we are not totally convinced that's the only thing going on. Mark's been under a lot of stress lately, so perhaps that added into the equation was enough to send us into this nightmare? In any case, the plan is to stop taking one of the meds and see if that helps. Mark has been eating well and exercising for years now in an effort to prevent the heart issues that run in the family. Which is why we were so confused about the situation in the first place.

Mark's mom, Sydney and I took Elisabeth to her ballet recital and left Mark and his dad at the hospital. The recital was quite possibly the cutest thing I have ever seen. I was concerned about Elisabeth considering the circumstances, but she did great! However when I greeted her afterward she was crying hysterically - to the point that her face looked broken out in a rash - and she said she was upset because her Barbie video game didn't have batteries in it. I am fairly certain this was her stress level finally getting the best of her.

We called Mark after the recital, and he was discharged - and already home! It was so nice to drive home and sit down with him in our own house, knowing we would not have to drive back to the hospital. It was the first time all weekend that my own anxiety-induced chest pains disappeared. Mark is on many prescriptions right now - a Beta Blocker to prevent a heart attack, a blood thinner, a pain killer and an anti-inflammatory. And tylenol and aspirin. Along with his Niaspan. He said he feels like an old man, trying to remember when to take each medicine. He still gets the same pains in his shoulders and of course at the site where the catheter entered the artery for the angiogram, but he is able to control it. He has a follow-up appointment later this month, and we pray that he will be healed of whatever the problem is.

These are the words that were written on the wall in the cardiac unit: "It is God who is my helper, the heart of Love who sustains my life." I passed these words often over the course of the weekend. They were a comfort and reminder to me every time I passed them to put my faith in God. Elisabeth reminds us often that "God is in our hearts and in our bodies and all around us." She is so right. We were well taken care of this weekend by family, friends, neighbors, and God. We are so lucky to have this kind of support system. It's not something I truly realized until this weekend. A swingset is one thing (which is driven by beer, of course). Something like this is a whole other ballgame, you know?