Tell Your Story: Skipping Class Saves Life

By Melanie Mooney Morris

I am always amazed when little decisions that seem inconsequential at the time turn out to be enormous when you look back at them later. Last week with some guilt, but with good reason, I notified my online writing instructor, Tom Hallman, that I’d miss the first class.

I’d arranged to have the “Stairsteps,” the name we fondly call one group of our grandchildren, at our home for a week. After dinner, instead of logging on to the Zoom feed for the class, I take the three kids and Logan, our Australian Shepherd, on a long walk. We leave grandpa home to read the Wall Street Journal and to recover from his water volleyball class.

After the walk, we open the front door and unleash Logan. He runs into the family room and starts barking. Logan doesn’t bark, so the kids and I race to retrieve him and find my husband in a state of what appears to be either cardiac arrest or COPD distress.

I shake him, “Don, Don, are you alright?” I almost say, “Annie, Annie can you hear me?” That’s the name of the dummy used when renewing a CPR/First Aid card.

Don can barely whisper out the word “blue.” I ask, “Inhaler?” He nods yes. Suddenly the entire room and my life disappear in front of me; I quickly go upstairs. I feel as if I am going in slow motion. I can hear the words rolling through my head, “step by step,” from the old horror movie Frankenstein. I grab the blue inhaler and swim through the haze of fear back downstairs to his side. He can’t take the capsule from me and starts shaking.

I reach over the top of him to grab the house phone. As I dial 911, I look up to see my two precious granddaughters holding hands and staring at me with huge eyes. I am surprised that I can remember my name, address, and phone number.

The 911 operator tells me to send someone to the gate. “Girls, where is your brother? Get John,” I command. John appears out of thin air. In seconds he takes in the situation. I yell, “Car keys, gate remote, gate, let in the ambulance. Show them where we live.” John runs out the front door.

Don is pale and sweaty. He is still struggling to take each agonizing breath. I tell the girls to run and get Jay, the neighbor across the street. Jay isn’t home. Still holding the phone, I point at the house next door, “Get Denise.” The paramedics and a fire truck roar in and take over.

The three Stairsteps, Denise, and I now hold our breath while watching the paramedics work on grandpa.

Two firemen roll in a stretcher and, with the EMTs, hoist Don onto it. I follow the ambulance, sit beside my 81-year-old husband in the ER, and observe all the tests and the drugs pumped into him. I feel fortunate to be allowed into the ER patient area with the COVID-19 epidemic starting to surge again.

Finally, an ER doctor appears and tells me that Don is having a COPD episode — not a heart attack. He will be okay, “this time.” Don is staying overnight, and I am to go home.

I look at the streetlight at the hospital lot exit and don’t know which way to turn. I don’t know how to get home. I have been to this hospital many times; it is only two miles from where we live. I finally turn left then pull onto a side street to recover. I eat an energy bar, drink water, and turn on my GPS. The “Voice” guides me home.

Even though it is almost midnight, Denise and the kids are up waiting for me. Overwhelmed, I sit down wearily at the kitchen table.

A hand pats my shoulder; I look up as John places a piece of warmed pizza in front of me. Annie and Lucy hand me a salad and put a glass of wine on the table. I peer at the Stairsteps; such perceptive, kind children.

The hospital keeps Don for three nights. Denise chauffeurs the kids to Vancouver Lake each day for Rowing Camp. Jay and his wife, Susan, check up on us each day; they bring flowers and food.

On Friday, Don’s son comes to pick up his children. I hug each one.

John pauses on the doorstep. “Isn’t it odd that Denise next door and Jay and Susan across the street also belong to the Multnomah Athletic Club? You skipped your MAC class, but other members filled in and helped you. Isn’t that an unusual, even weird coincidence, that you all live in one neighborhood? If you hadn’t skipped your online class, you could have been locked in the dining room zooming away while grandpa had his attack.”

Our grandchildren start down the driveway; John looks back at me. He grins, pumps his hand in the air, and shouts: “One, Two, Three.”

The Stairsteps yell together, “Thank God you skipped class!” Then they laugh their way down the driveway and hop into their parents’ car.

Melanie Mooney Morris is a retired Clark College business technology professor. She has been a member of Tom Hallman’s Tell Your Story class for six months and has found his unique teaching style — a blend of personal and group critiquing — a means for moving beyond writing business letters to writing stories.