One Magpie

Last Easter.

Charles had just had his toe chopped off. He was born with an exceptionally large left toe, which Charles was fine with that until his twenties when he smashed it and it started growing even bigger, causing him pain.

The amputation went well. I remember it as a nice day, actually, where I sat in a private sitting room and drank hot chocolate and read the entire New York Times.

Charles fainted once on the hospital bed, and then again after surgery on the sidewalk in front of our house. For a while he just crawled everywhere, too afraid that we would faint again.

The recovery was painful and Charles couldn't move at all. He even peed in a cup and had me, his gracious wife, take it to the toilet.

In the middle of the night before Easter day, Charles woke complaining that his chest hurt.
"It's nothing," I said, "Go back to bed."
He tried, but woke up saying it was not nothing, and he needed to go to the hospital. So we were getting dressed and Charles started to take some aspirin because he knew thats what you should do if you are having a heart attack. But then he fainted--heavy pain killers, real pain, who knows, but he fell to the ground along with all of the pills.

I looked at my husband on the ground surrounded by pills, went into panic mode, and called 911.

They came with a fire truck and an ambulance. Had he really had a heart attack, he would of died because the medics black box was out of batteries. His heart seemed fine, but they took him to the hospital anyway, concerned about the recent amputation, and infection and a possible stroke.

I had to explain the recent toe amputation to the doctors, because the toe was all wrapped up. I pulled up facebook on the nurses computers and showed them the big toe, and where they had cut it off. The doctor printed off the facebook photo and added it to Charles's medical file.

Once in the hospital, Charles realized what was really going on. He hadn't taken his acid reflux drugs since the amputation, had eaten a big plate of pesto, and slept with his foot propped. The perfect storm for major heart burn.

The doctors were nice, saying they had been to the hospital themselves for heartburn thinking it was a heart attack. I slept on a recliner.

We got home at 7:00 a.m. and the kids were up wanting their Easter baskets. We pointed to them and went back to bed, skipping out on church.

And a whole year has gone by. Man that went fast.