My family went to the Orlando City Soccer game for Mother's Day and my birthday. It was our first MLS game and it was amazing! We walked back to the parking garage, headed home with my husband driving. We were chatting about the game just barely out of the garage when my husband suddenly slumped over the steering wheel with his foot on the brake and rolled into the truck in front of us at a red light.
I told my daughter to call 911. In what seemed like seconds the EMS was there, and my future son-in-law gently pulled me off my husband, so the Paramedics could take over. They rushed him straight to the ORMC ED. By the time I got to the hospital, he was in the cath lab. A doctor came in to tell us that he had had a STEMI and was in ventricular fibrillation when EMS arrived. He advised me of the seriousness of my husband's condition. He answered all my questions and we were led to the waiting room for CVICU.
While we waited for the doctor to come and talk to us, my husband's CVICU nurse came out to talk to me. Rachel Harris sat on the floor with me, explaining everything that would happen once he came up from the cath lab. After a couple of hours, they came and spoke with us. When they finished talking with us, Rachel came back out to ask if I had any further questions. I asked if I could spend the night in the waiting room and she said she would come and get me once he had stabilized so that I could see him. She asked me if there was anything special I should know about him and I told her that he is also a nurse who was a Paramedic first and that he always calls me his Queen.
I sent my daughter home and dozed off and on in the waiting room waiting for Rachel to take me to see him. Rachel came to get me around 5 am with a plate of food from the Nurse's Week breakfast that was catered to CVICU with coffee and orange juice, and told me she had a surprise for me. From behind her back, she slowly held up a tiara!
Rachael had taken the time to find me a tiara because she said that the first thing she wanted my husband to see when he woke up was his Queen in her tiara. I was, and still am, so touched by that little gesture. It means so much to me! I wore the tiara his entire hospital stay and it was a great conversation piece in the elevators, cafeteria and everywhere. Whenever someone asked me about my tiara I told them about the amazing team at ORMC and especially Rachel in CVICU.
There are so many people who touched our lives at ORMC it would be impossible for me to mention them all and honestly so much of the night is a blur. I do know that my husband is alive today because of the wonderful team of doctors, nurses, techs, paramedics, and everyone else who was involved in his care. I took him home after only 3 days at ORMC. He had his first follow up cardiology appointment with Dr. V and he is doing great! Recovery will be slow, but he will recover and it's nothing short of a miracle. Dr. V told me that less than 1 in 25 people survive a heart attack outside the hospital and that he was extremely lucky to be where he was at the time of his STEMI. What I know is that I feel blessed and humbled to be a part of the Orlando Health team. I also know that ORMC is the best hospital possible!