I am starting this out with praise. The praise goes to the paramedics who answered a call on February 11 at Evans Prairie Country Club. Then there are the doctors and nurses at The Villages hospital to whom I was delivered. I must note that February 11 was not just any normal day. It was my good wife’s birthday. (Which one is highly classified). We were having dinner with two good friends. Just as the dinner arrived, I started feeling weird. I tried eating but just couldn’t. I tried walking a little, but had to sit down. After some debate, I asked The Blonde in the House to bring the car up to the front door.
She did, but as many know, she is a clever lady. She knows that I dislike going to hospitals, so she asked the country club to call the paramedics. They did and one rolled up and I was asked by a professional paramedic to let them take me into their rescue vehicle. I agreed and was soon told that my blood pressure was running all over the place. It was going real high down to 20 beats per minute. They suggested I go immediately to the hospital. Even I could see the sense in that.
So off we went. We arrived at The Villages Hospital where I was immediately taken into a large room with a doctor and several nurses. It was kind of eerie as I gave my phone to one of the nurses who used it to call our two sons and suggested to them that they might want to come down as matters were problematic. In fact, not long after I must have crashed. I came alert and saw a nurse shouting “Barry, we brought you back! We Saved you.” I don’t know if I thanked them or not, but I did appreciate it. Our two sons were there the next day, by the way. They were of immense help the next week or so.
That night matters did get better. They installed a temporary pacemaker in me which calmed things down. Then two days later they put in a brand-new model pacemaker. They also took out the temporary pacemaker which hurt more than the two installations, but it was great to get rid of it so I am not complaining. In fact, lots of kudos to the gentleman who removed it! When your life is continued through competent professionalism, there is nothing for me to do but applaud their work…