Scared. I thought I had been scared before. You would think that after living 33 years a person would have experienced being scared before. I thought I had been scared before but last month I found out that I hadn’t experienced truly being scared until then. After our experience in February I had hoped we were done with near death experiences. How often do those types of situations come up in the average person’s life anyway? Sadly another one, one even bigger than that one, was just over the horizon.

July 4^th. That day will never be the same for me ever again. I took my wife to the hospital for what we thought was dehydration. 4 hours after we arrived there surgeons were performing emergency surgery on her. After they had prepped her a nurse came out and asked me if I wanted to see her before they took her back. Looking back I think they were letting me say my last goodbye before a surgery she might not come back from. My wife was crying. I did my best to sooth her and calm her down. I held her hand and smiled and put on a brave face. I had to be strong for her. I told her everything was going to be okay. One of the last things she said as they were about to roll her away was she was scared. It broke my heart. I told her there was nothing to be scared about. I told her that she was in good hands and that I loved her. As they were rolling her away I said the same thing I always say before she goes into surgery, “Come back to me.”

The longest 5 hours of my life began. It was a Sunday and a holiday to boot. The waiting room was completely empty. I felt like the only person in the entire hospital. I sat in a chair directly opposite of the doors leading into the surgery area but about as far away from the door as I could possibly be. I don’t remember much about those hours. Time seemed to drag and fly by at the same time. I curled up in my chair and balled my eyes out. In between crying sessions I prayed. I prayed harder than I’ve ever prayed before. That was being scared. That was the most scared I’ve ever been in my life. The feeling of having absolutely no control over anything was overwhelming. I felt very small and insignificant. I looked out the window at the sun sliding lower in the sky wondering what lay ahead.

The doors opened. A nurse came out and told me the surgery was complete. The doctor wanted to speak to me. My stomach clinched. Sitting in the consultation room waiting for the doctor to come in I tried to think positive but it seemed best not to think anything at all. When the doctor came in it was all I could do not to spring up out of the chair. He looked me straight in the eye and told me what he had found and what he did to fix it. I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t telling me everything that had happened though. From his body language I could tell that he was shaken up. I think he, much like my wife and I earlier in the day, went in thinking this was going to be fairly routine only to find it was much more serious. He told me enough to let me know that she was in very serious condition but that she had made it through the surgery. She was alive. I asked him point blank if she was going to be okay. He said they’d need to get her through the next few days first before worrying about that. That wasn’t very reassuring but I thanked him and he left.

More waiting followed. She was in ICU but they weren’t ready for me to see her yet. I called family members to update them. I was fighting back tears the whole time. Troubling thoughts crept into my head. She had survived but for how long? How will this affect her long term? Will she be normal or will she be disabled in some way? After a while another nurse came out to get me. As we passed through the double doors I had been staring at for hours the nurse grabbed my arm. She told me I needed to be prepared for what I was about to see. They had to put my wife on a ventilator. She told me what that entailed and what my wife would look like when we went into her room. I didn’t really grasp it until we actually walked in though. I gasped. It was incredibly hard to see. Tubes seemed to be coming out of her from everywhere. The sight in front of me didn’t seem like my wife. Her beautiful, vibrant eyes half opened seemed dull, almost lifeless. Her wonderful face was gaunt, her skin sallow. Tears filled my eyes again. I immediately grasped her hand and rubbed her cheek. She was alive. That was all that mattered. I grasped onto that fact and held on for dear life.

I stared at her face. She was in a medically induced coma. When staring at her face became too hard I stared at the machines keeping her alive. It felt like I was willing her heart to keep beating; praying that she would keep breathing. I couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking. Where was she in there? Later she told me she was having dreams. The common theme of the dreams was that she was on her way to somewhere. She said through the course of those dreams she came to the realization that she was dying.  She realized that she didn’t want to die. We had too many things left to do. I didn’t know any of this was going on but I could tell that she was fighting. I recall myself saying stay with me over and over. I held her hand and watched her for what seemed like a long time. Finally, ICU visiting hours were over and I had to leave. Visitors, even spouses, were not allowed to stay overnight with ICU patients. I gave the nurses my cell number. They promised to call if anything happened. I timed the drive home. 7 minutes. I figured I could get back in 4 if I had to.

Sleep didn’t come quickly. I cranked the volume all the way up on my cell phone.  It was sitting on my night stand about a foot away. I stared at it for what seemed like hours praying that it wouldn’t ring. When sleep finally came it was brief. I woke up scared. Something was wrong. I could feel it. I thought back to my grandma. When she passed away in the middle of the night I felt it. I can’t explain the feeling. I woke up out of a dead sleep and just knew. This feeling was similar. I immediately started praying. Lord please protect her. Please watch over her. Please don’t take her from me. I reached out and tried to speak to her. I said stay with me again and again. The house felt very cold and empty. For the second time that day I felt very much alone. I couldn’t really sleep after that. I got up and cleaned the dishes. I washed clothes. I made the bed in the guest bedroom in preparation for my mother-in-law’s arrival. I did any and everything I could think of to not have to lay in the bed by myself worrying about her.

The phone didn’t ring. The sun rose the next morning. Birds chirped. Cars passed by. The world kept turning. I had finally gone back to bed and eventually fell asleep. As the sun came through the blinds I awoke with a start. I immediately checked my phone. No missed calls. No missed messages. My racing heart slowed down a bit. More thoughts flooded my mind. Did something happen last night? Were they too busy working on her to call me? I got cleaned up quickly and rushed back to the hospital. I found myself holding my breath as I approached her room. Exhale. She was still there. Her nurse said she had had a very rough night but she was still there. Alive. When I saw that I wasn’t scared any more. Worried yes. Scared no. I had this deep down feeling that she would be alright. She had survived that first night. I had survived that first night. It was roughly 7 in the morning. 24 hours after I first brought her there. We had made it through the first day.