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Most of you don’t know this but Mac and I have spent most of December in one hospital or another. Mac as the patient, me as the fierce protector.

He has a heart condition called atrial fibrillation. It means his heart beats much faster at times than it should, causing him to feel light headed and faint. And here I thought that was just love. Seems living with me all these years may have earned him a medal after all; can you hear me Kenny?

So we thought we had it under control with medicine, when suddenly, the first of December , he went into full flutter and passed out for a few seconds. It so happened that I was on the phone with Carol, Dr. Grainger’s Nurse Practitioner at the exact time. She told me to call 911 and she would call Baptist Hospital and get him a room. The ambulance pulled up and Marty Horton stepped out. Marty has been a friend for years and just knowing that he and Steve were in control of the situation made me feel a huge relief.

So, we spent eight days in Baptist where he was prepared for a cardio conversion, his second one in as many weeks. The medicine he was on had to wash out before they started him on a new one to use with the conversion. This is where they use the paddles to shock your heart back into a normal sinus rhyme. It hadn’t worked before and I wondered why they thought it might work this time, but they were hopeful.

So, it shocked him into the correct rhythm and Dr. Grainger told us we could go home on Wednesday. On Friday, same situation only I drove and we went to Carolina Pines where Dr. Grainger has a practice too. No shock this time, but more medicine changes.

We stayed there until Tuesday. Mac no longer likes to ride with me. We always end up in a doctor’s office or in the hospital. It’s Thursday, we are languishing in Richland Memorial Hospital. We are hopeful of an ablation. But it will probably be more meds. I drove us here, the sun in my face all the way. We arrived with Mac, a nervous wreck (a good passenger he is not), and I with a blinding headache.

Everyone in the practice knows us by sight and name. We may go home Christmas Day. I am now telling everyone we are the new musical group and are on our Hospital Tour. He’s McBride, I’m the “Ride.”

— Sandi McBride is a resident of Jefferson, who blogs regularly and enjoys her garden and her furry and feathered friends. She is a wife and mother of two sons.