Mother's Day

Well this Mother’s Day is like no other Mother’s Day I’ve experienced before. Yesterday at noon I received a voicemail message from my dad letting me know he and my mom were heading to the hospital. I was in the gym at the time of the call so called immediately upon receiving the message. When I got a hold of my dad he was crying and could tell me mom was having a heart attack, they were at the hospital and that she didn’t look good. I immediately drove to the hospital where my brother and his family were waiting along with my dad. My dad and brother were outside the ER room from my mom while my sister-in-law, Claudia stayed in the lobby with Anthony and Amira. The medical staff immediately pulled me in and told me I could kiss her, talk to her, do whatever I want as she’d know I was there, to which of course I immediately did. It is so tragic when you see your mother all hooked up to machines with wires all over her and a tube down her throat. I told her I was there and that all of the family was there and that we loved her so much and prayed over her. I was then asked to move from the room as they were going to be transferring my mom from this hospital to a hospital that specialized in cardiac care. During this brief period, I would say no more than an hour and a half they had to recessitate my mom three times. A doctor, nurse and ambulatory staff rushed my mom to the other hospital safely, alhamdullilah. Waiting at the other hospital was a surgical team who would immediately take her into surgery. About an hour later the doctor that worked on my mom came out and advised us that her arteries were fine, but that she had a small blood clot that caused all the trouble. He stated that he put a stint in her heart and that right now she had a balloon inside of her that was assisting her heart to work. He said that her heart was working on it’s own but that the purpose of this balloon was to allow her heart to not have to work as hard since it’s gone through something so dangerous. He also stated that for now they have a temporary pace maker in her. He said that she was very sick and that we’d have to take it one day at a time.

A couple of hours later my dad, brother and I were allowed in to the CICU division to see her. The nurse on hand was very informative and grateful to see us. The nurse on duty said the plan was to by evening remove the tube from her throat, and then the next day remove the balloon assisting her heart. At this point my dad thought it was best that we leave for the evening as mom was in the best place and that we should allow the medical staff to do their job without our interference. At 8:45 p.m. I called the hospital to inquire about her and see if the tube had been removed. The nurse on duty stated that they were not going to remove the tube tonight because at 6:30 my mom’s heart went into a V-tak (sorry for medical professionals---don’t know the spelling) and that they had to zap her to bring her heart back into regular rhythm.

At 5:30 this morning I called the hospital to once again check on my mom and the nurse informed me that she remained pretty stable throughout the night, alhamdullilah. My mom is also diabetic so we had to worry about her blood sugar levels, which as of yesterday afternoon they were in the 500’s, but as of this morning they were in the mid 200’s which still isn’t good by any means, however, it’s an improvement, alhamdullilah.

We will be going back down to the hospital after 10 as visiting hours do not allow us in before then. I ask you please to consider praying for my mom and family.

When moments like this happen it truly realigns anything in your life that is out of alignment. For there is nothing more precious then life. You realize there’s so many things that perhaps you should have said to your loved one, but for some reason have never said because either you’ve not really thought too much about it or you just think there’s always going to be time. After yesterday, there is no other moment but RIGHT NOW. We are still waiting to see if we have an opportunity to tell our loved one how much she means to us, how proud we are that she is our mom/wife, how much we adore her, and how thankful we are that God blessed us with her. I hope God allows us this opportunity, inshallah.

So please remember we only have today and to tell those you care about how much you appreciate them and love them because you’ll never get this moment back.

My love to you all and blessings upon your families, inshallah.