Father’s Day.  We are up as usual. David goes to the golf course. The Sunday golfers don’t go out super early.

9:21 AM  -Happy Father’s day, Pops!

12:35 PM  Oh yeah, thanks! How are you guys doing?

-We are in Newport right now and next stop is Martha’s Vineyard.

Cool. Say hi to the Kennedys for me. Things working out on the new boat?

1:18 PM -Yea pretty swimmingly. When we get back to Panama City we will get time off and I can finish up engine swap before we head to Caribbean for winter. Woo woo

We head to lunch as usual. Once home we acknowledge we are both tired. David settles down on the couch for a nap and I am typing letters for the sailing club. Around three o’clock David literally pops up off the couch. He says nothing when I ask him but it’s obvious something is very wrong. I scream at him to tell me. He is pale, his skin cold and clammy. He is making little grunting noises and admits to left sided chest pressure. He is not nauseated. I have him chew a 5 mg. Aspirin and we jump in the car calling a doctor we know in Corozal. He will meet us at his office. I leave the back door open. 

In Corozal we stop to see the doctor who wants to send us on to  Mexico or Orange Walk or Belize City for EKG, labs and observation. The physician unsuccessfully tries to contact a colleague, a cardiologist in Belize City. We are wasting time. He gives David sublingual nitroglycerin which lessens his pain (from a 6/10 down to a 3/10 where it will remain) and monitors his blood pressure. We look at one another and the weight of our choices hangs heavily upon us. I have left our passports at home and must retrieve them if we are to make the border crossing. I’m trying to calculate how much time everything will take. The language barrier looms large in our heads but Mexico is known to have better healthcare. Is it the right choice in this emergency? We hesitate. All the while David’s heart muscle is dying.

I will never know if the outcome would have been different had we gone to Mexico and it tortures me. Instead we drive to Belize City bypassing Orange Walk Town. We stop for gas. I fly where I can but it seems to take forever. We talk. We hold hands. He is stoic. He is vulnerable. I take his pulse which becomes increasingly rapid and irregular. I tell him to hang on. I  joke that if he arrests in the car I will have to stop to administer CPR. We both know the outcome will not be good and are grim. It is nearly four and a half hours from onset before he receives thrombolytics, a medicine to dissolve the clot that is blocking the blood supply to his heart. Four and a half hours. It’s only two and a half hours from our house to Belize City. How can it have taken so much time? 

I have called Caitlin but I can’t reach Yuri by phone. I message him but get no reply. I don’t know what reception he gets onboard the boat.

7:56 PM Yuri, we are in a private hospital in Belize City. Your Dad is having a heart attack. He is stable at present, on O2, I.V. & thrombolytics. All appropriate measures. He will be stabilized and transported to the U.S. within 24 to 48 hrs. Don’t know all options yet.

I did try to call and will try again in the a.m. or if things change.

9:20 PM See? He’s alive and kicking. But seriously, he is more ill than he knows. They have lowered his heart rate, BP is stable, has fluid on his lungs (heart not working well). They have given him diuretics and he is on 100% O2

He is saturating at 99 on that now. It has improved. There is nothing for you to do right now. I am satisfied with his care here. Of course, he needs a heart cath and ?

Sometime after 9:30 PM I reach Yuri via Facebook Messenger calling. David is relieved.