A Heavenly Code Blue
On July 5, 2001, I flatlined during my second heart attack. I heard the monitor and turned my head to see the horizontal green line.
Does that mean what I think it means?
I thought the nurse closest to me might faint.
I don’t know if she did. I don’t have any specific memories of when I awoke. My wife, Rosemary, who stood at the end of the bed in the ER, told me what had happened next.
“They called, ‘Code Blue. Code Blue,’ and tilted your head down. But before the crash cart got there, you were back. They never used the paddles to shock you.”
My first heart attack had followed what could have been my last supper. A delicious tender steak, baked potato, and salad would have been my demise—as is so often the case, especially for men.
That was in May 1998, when my daughter Meaghan was only three weeks old. I learned the digestive system uses enormous amounts of blood, which can overburden your heart.
The trigger of the second heart attack in 2001 remains a mystery.
It was past our bedtime when I was feeling the pain and learned Rosemary had forgotten to pay a couple of bills.
“I’ll take them to the offices and put them in the drop box so they’ll be there first thing in the morning,” I said. It was a good excuse to get out of the house. I’ll stop by the hospital. They’ll tell me I’m fine. She’ll be asleep before I get home.
As happened before, in the ER, God spared my life.
Somehow, Howard, our pastor, found out about my ER trip and pounded on our front door. “Rosemary! Wake up!” She opened the door. “Jeff’s at the hospital.”
When Rosemary got there, an ER doctor broke the news. “He’s having a heart attack. The drug is working just the way it’s supposed to.” The cardiologist seemed surprised but glad. And since I needed surgical intervention they couldn’t provide in that rural hospital, he told Rosemary, “As soon as he’s stable, we’ll Air Evac him to Phoenix.”
I was afraid. I’d begged my friend Howard to pray for me. “You know what to say.” Then he left.
Oh, God, not again. I can’t take this. Dear God, please forgive me.
When you can’t breathe, all you can think is what I thought. I don’t want to die!
Some people think dying wouldn’t be that bad. If you believe in Jesus, you expect to go to heaven. No more sorrow. No more pain. No more suffering. Perfect body. And much more. Reminds me of an infomercial. All yours for the low cost of leaving this world. But I’m in no hurry to do that.
I’ll have all eternity to spend with God. I’m needed here. I have a wife, a daughter, a church that needs me. People who want me. I didn’t want to leave. But it wasn’t up to me.
What about Meaghan? Who will teach her what she needs to know? Who will hold her? Who will sing to her and dance with her?
I recalled our first night together. I sat in the hospital nursery rocking her. Our dear friend Gwen, one of the nurses on duty, handed me a bottle. “She won’t eat. She hasn’t.”
I rubbed the nipple across Meaghan’s lips. She greedily gulped, but milk poured out and ran down her chin to soak her nightgown. “Gwen, I think the nipple is too big.”
“How did we miss that?” Gwen took the bottle, traded out nipples and handed it back to me. Meaghan devoured the formula. I burped her, more by accident than expertise. We leaned back in the rocker. Soon Meaghan drifted off to sleep to the lullaby of my voice singing the lyrics she would know so well—“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
God, I want to sing again. I want to hold my daughter. I know it’s a selfish prayer, but please, God. Don’t let it end like this.
The pain increased. I couldn’t exhale. A heart attack has that effect. It’s the opposite of crucifixion, when you can’t inhale. I imagined what Jesus must have endured.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. God, please forgive me.
I felt calm, tranquil, peaceful, at rest, not a care in the world. Only later did I learn that Pam, Howard’s wife, had begun to “storm the gates of heaven.” That’s how she described prayer. To Pam and others in our church that she enlisted that night, prayer was something akin to D-Day—an all-out assault. I learned later that hundreds of people in other churches joined the fight for my life.
In the moment when I needed it most, God heard. He answered. He gave me His peace.
Does that mean what I think it means?
“Code Blue! Code Blue!”
No tunnel. No light. No welcoming committee. Nothing. Except serenity.
God answered my prayers. And the prayers of so many others. I know my wife prayed that July as she did in May three years earlier. “God, no. I didn’t sign on to be a single parent. I’m not doing this by myself. Bring him back. Now.”
I’m grateful that family and friends and neighbors and strangers around the world prayed for me, with me. God can save by many or by few. But I am especially comforted knowing God heard my plea.
Semper fidelis not only describes the Marines, it also describes God. Always faithful, God gave me what I asked for.
I’m not sure when I became aware of my surroundings again. Maybe it was later than night. Perhaps it was the next day or the day after or the day after that. It might have been morning. It could have been afternoon. When God answers a prayer isn’t what we notice. I only knew I could breathe. My chest didn’t hurt. I only knew that by the grace of God I wasn’t dead.
After I was revived by someone besides the physicians, EMS personnel loaded me on a helicopter to the airport for another flight to Phoenix. Different hospital, different doctors. Same procedure. An angiogram became angioplasty in order to place multiple stents. The tiny collapsed scaffolds, when deployed, would lock open and support my weakened arteries at critical junctures.
I became gradually aware at some point that I was in an ICU room. The recurring hum of a small pump measuring my blood pressure. The familiar blip of a monitor graphing my heartbeats. The ping of an alarm to alert the nurses that I’d finished yet another bottle of whatever they fed me through an IV. I dozed on and off as the TV faded in and out. I barely noticed the soft padded footsteps of various personnel who checked on me. My environment served one purpose: rest. So I did.
I still do.
I rest in the goodness of God. And I pray. I’m thankful I don’t have to be afraid. I pray others won’t be.