A little too much excitement

When my boys were little, they would judge the excitement of a day by how many different kinds of vehicles they saw. Together, we read books about vehicles. We sang songs about vehicles. We watched videos about vehicles. We had a Matchbox car collection so large it was practically uncontainable.

When my oldest son, Will, was four years old, he went on a special trip with my husband. They called home upon arriving at their hotel. Will's breathlessly thrilling report to me? "I rode in a van, a bus, an airplane, and a rental car ALL IN ONE DAY!" In the world of a family of boys, a day doesn't get much better than that.

But even in a family of boys, it was altogether a little too exciting for this vehicle to arrive at our house on Wednesday evening:

I snapped this photo with my phone just before I climbed in to accompany my husband to Duke Hospital. Jack's open-heart surgery is now three weeks past, and he's been doing really well. But he had a setback on Wednesday when his heart developed arrhythmia and he fainted. He hit his chest on our living room sofa when he went down--right across his incision site. Miraculously, he was not badly hurt. But he fainted again as Preston and I were helping him into our bedroom. At that point I called 911.

And that's how I got the exciting chance to ride in an ambulance.

So Jack is back in the hospital for a couple of days. Thank God, he's doing well now. Apparently some post-surgical inflammation caused the arrhythmia. They conducted a lot of tests to rule out any other problems; everything was fine. They performed a process called cardioversion to stop and re-start his heart. I'll admit that was a little scary, but now his heart in normal rhythm. His cardiologist also prescribed an anti-arrhythmic drug that he'll have to take for several weeks. He'll remain in the hospital for observation for another day or so, and then he should get to go home.

Will you join me in thanking God for protecting Jack? It's been a rough couple of days, but I am brought to my knees in gratitude in considering how much worse things could have been. I think I've had all the excitement I need for one week!