Wedding Blog

Mr. Hummingbird will tease me for my holiday related cheesiness (today is Thanksgiving here in Canada), but considering what has happened these last few days, I can’t help it.

Some of you might have noticed, I was out of commission for part of last week. The reason for this was because, on Thursday morning, we got a call from Mr. Hummingbird’s Stepmum who told us Mr. Hummingbird’s father was in the hospital. While we had known that FIL Hummingbird had not been feeling too well while they were in Spain recently, we had all assumed that it was just a minor travel-related thing. However, when he came back, and the discomfort continued, he went to get checked out by his doctor, who put him on a portable heart monitor for a period of 48 hours. When FIL Hummingbird returned the monitor to the doctor, it was discovered that the reason for his discomfort was that his heart had stopped. Five times. For six seconds.

Since the assumption had been that everything was okay, FIL Hummingbird had left the hospital before the readout had been processed, so the hospital personnel tried frantically to get ahold of him before he got too far from the hospital. Upon his return (he managed to get all the way back to work), he was immediately admitted and a surgery to install a pacemaker was scheduled.

Mr. Hummingbird immediately made arrangements with his boss to go to be with his dad and his stepmum (she and FIL Hummingbird just got married last summer so this was an incredibly scary thing to have to go through after a little more than a year of marriage) and I went to my boss and made arrangements so I could go back to be there the next day.

The 24 hours leading up to the surgery were tense for everyone. Though it was not my biological parent going under the knife, because Mr, Hummingbird and I have been together for three years, we’ve both spent a fair amount of time with each other’s parents and hearing the words “Heart Stopped, “Surgery,” and “Intensive Care,” even if they’re in a perfectly logical context, felt incredibly scary.

Happily, the procedure went well and after FIL Hummingbird was discharged from the hospital, we all had a great Thanksgiving dinner, not only because it was so tasty, but because all the people in Mr. Hummingbird’s family . . . in my family could be there.

I’ll get back to my regular planning blogs later this week, but for today, as schmaltzy as it might sound, I just wanted to take a moment to give thanks for good health and family and to ask you readers, in the spirit of this holiday, what have you been thankful for?

Be funny, be thoughtful, be serious - lay it on me.