My man has rhythm

A scary few days on the old farm. Last Thursday and Friday was a beautiful 70 degrees! Amazing, since it's now a ear numbing 14 degrees. We used the warm weather to catch up on some gardening chores. Mostly shredding leaving and moving soil and compost to some vegetable beds. A feel good day!

However, in the early hours last Sunday morning KingPlinker woke me and said he felt strange. He asked me to feel his chest. My expert diagnosis was that a madman hopped up on thirty cups of coffee was playing bongos on his chest. Trust me, I wasn't quite able to laugh or make jokes about it at the time. In fact, neither of us could figure out what to do. Hindsight says we should have called an ambulance. But we were concerned about unnecessarily alarming the kids. And we didn't want to wake them so early, just to spend the morning waiting around an emergency room.


He drove himself to the hospital. It wasn't a long wait, 30 minutes later he called to say they were med-flighting him to another hospital. His phone battery was going dead and he would call once he got admitted to a room. I didn't know what was going on and he said he would explain later. This is where things got really stressful, I (they, actually) misplaced my husband and had no way to contact him! We were told he was flown to a different hospital!

Always up to documenting a "moment", Mr.Plinker used the last of his phone battery to snap a photo of his adventure!

About 7 (did I mention stressful) hours later. I found him, fifty miles away, laid up in a hospital bed, charming the nurses. I was finally able to know what was going on with his heart. The doctors believe he had become dehydrated (hear that gardeners..drink your water!) and his potassium dropped. This sent his heart into a rapid afib, a condition where the heart beats at such a fast erratic rate its no longer really "pumping" the blood.

In the first few hours they were able to get his heart rate lowered, with the rate lowered his heart was working again, as far as pumping. But the the erratic rhythm remained. He spent four days in the hospital, trying different meds. None worked, as the last resort they sedated him and gave him a 'shock'. He now has his rhythm back.
If he has become a better dancer is yet to be seen. As long as I have many more years to share on the dance floor...