This has been quite an eventful week. Last Monday I was having some severe chest pain and shortness of breath so we went to the emergency room. After waiting for 4 hours, I was finally put into a temporary holding cell, I mean observation room. The temporary room turned out to be my permanent room until after my cardiac catheterization on Wednesday morning. I had two previous stents that were blocked so the doctor did an angioplasty to expand the stent further out, and then used a cutting balloon to remove some of the buildup in the stents. I had very severe chest pain afterwards and my blood pressure dropped to 90/40, so they gave me a bolus of IV fluids, morphine, and nitroglycerin. It finally improved in about 30 minutes. I was released on Thursday afternoon, and am recovering at home now. This is the fifth time that I have had this type of heart procedure done with 10 previous stents. However, this one was much more painful that all the others. I should be in good shape to finish our mission here in Houston at the Employment Services Center, which will be ending on July 8th. We are excited to see our family at our reunion the first week of August.

This was the first day in the hospital. I didn't want to show you the 4th day because this picture looks like Dr. Jekyll and the 4-day picture looks like Mr. Hyde. I didn't want to scare anyone.

This experience really makes me appreciate the medical care in Utah. The last time I had 7 blockages and went into the emergency room at Utah Valley Hospital, they rushed me right in without any waiting time, and had 4 people working on me for evaluation. I was heavily sedated during the heart catheterization and didn't really feel much until I had a heart attach on the table. But, I think that was the best place to have one if I really needed to for the experience.

I could not feel any sedation with this one and the pain was excruciating each time they blew up the angioplasty balloon. It is the same sensation as a heart attack since the balloon occludes the blood flow to the heart muscle temporarily. They blew the balloon up about 12 times during the procedure. This really took a lot out of me this time. I guess at 72 years old, I don't bounce back like I used, way back when I was 69.

After I was released on Thursday afternoon, I felt strongly that I should go teach my English Connect class. This was the last class of the course, and the students receive their certificates at the end along with a little celebration with cake. After teaching two 1-hour classes and standing on my feet for 3 hours, I was really hurting. Probably not the smartest thing I have ever done, but it was worth it. Friday, Saturday, and today, I am realizing that this was a lot more serious and was much more stressful than my previous procedures. Still not feeling well and having some problems adjusting to the new medications and blood thinners that I am on. It is definitely taking a lot longer to get back to abnormal.

Spring is going full bore now. All the trees have their leaves and a lot of trees and bushes are in full bloom. It is weird that the leaves didn't start falling from the trees until mid January, and then started coming back on in early March. It is 85 degrees today, and will probably just go on up from there. One fun thing that comes with spring is the turtles in all the ponds come out to sun bathe. Every pond that we drive past in the morning on the way to the Employment Center has turtles on the bank. The ones in this picture are right below our balcony:

We only have a little over 3 months left on our mission. We are hoping that our senior missionary replacement couple will be able to get here before we leave in enough time for us to train them. If not, then the Employment Center will probably have to be shut down until they arrive. This has been such a rewarding experience, both in the Employment Center and in teaching English Connect. We have met a lot of amazing people and our lives have been greatly enriched through those associations. Leaving Houston will be bitter sweet. It will be hard leaving all of our friends behind that we have grown to love, but also very sweet to see our family again.