Dad's 60th Birthday Party

My dad turned 60 on October 3rd, 2010.  We went to Fort Smith for a quick visit.  JL helped him blow out the candles on his cake.  A few days after his birthday he had a massive heart attack.  A week after the heart attack he had a quadruple bypass and is doing well.  He is still off work and just got the clearance to lift up to 25 pounds.  He goes today for a dye test as one of his carotid arteries is still 99% blocked.  The hardest part of the whole process was just realizing how fast you can lose someone.  The doctor was great but was very honest when he said "you will be lucky to have 15 more years of him so I encourage you to enjoy each day you are blessed with him".  And we are doing just that...............

During the midst of all of this mother, within a 2 week time period had 2 car wrecks.  The first one totalled her car and gave her a concusion.  She is still having lots of trouble from the first wreck.  She just found out last week she will have to have a cortisone shot in her neck and physical therapy three days a week due to some damaged discs in her neck.  She is still reporting numbness in her left arm and it still hurts to brush her hair where the air bag hit her head.  The second wreck happened 2 weeks after the first wreck and she was rear ended.  I kept thinking mom and dad had a black cloud over them!

The day dad had his heart attack Greg was preparing for his trip to Colorado and would leave days later.  After Greg left, JL and I traveled every night for 10 days to Fort Smith.  JL was a trooper but knew things were not right.  We snuck him back to the ICU to see dad and that was the best encouragment dad could have to get back to good health.