"I can do all things through Christ... "

Joan & Frank

a.k.a. Mom & Dad

"...who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13

I feel very weak. Must be a virus or something. Interesting how it came about shortly after I found out my Mom has to have angioplasty this Friday. Mom described her symptoms as weakness, overall malaise, no pep, short of breath, pain in upper left side of chest. She'd been diagnosed through a stress test and the results are leading to this procedure wherein a stent may be introduced to her clogged artery. Heart failure is a possibility without the procedure and since Mom has diagnosed symptoms, the time is right for her to get some relief.

Dad had been diagnosed the same way - through a stress test. They called the blockage in his heart a 'widow's peak' saying without the surgery, he would have a massive coronary. So, Dad did the only thing he could do. He walked into the operating room at Columbia Presbyterian in New York and allowed leading cardiologist Dr. Mehmet Oz (who is regularly seen on Oprah and is a Dr. god in my opinion) to perform a successful quadruple bypass surgery on him. This was seven years ago. Since then, Dad's been very healthy and living a good, clean life - Thank You God.

I remember being very strong when Dad was going through all of this. My sister Debbie almost passed out at the hospital, but I wasn't shaken. I just knew he was going to be alright and being strong in front of my father was always very important. Only the strong survive kind of mentality, so whilst on the front line - you 'keep a stiff upper lip' as my grandmother Violet used to say.

But with Mom it's different. Immediately, the sympathy pains and symptoms arrived after she told me. I could feel the blood pound into my ears hard, b-bam, b-bam, b-bam, what? Not again. Not Mommy. She's selflessly worked her whole life providing for her children and then for her elderly Mother, why should she have to go through any of this? I guess because we're only human after all. But, I want to be superhuman and take it all away from her. Go through it for her. Spare her the anxiety of getting up at 5am on one of the coldest days of the year and voluntarily going to St. Michael's in Newark to undergo a procedure that involves her heart.

Any procedure that has to do with the heart, the brain, the lungs...c'mon, it's heavy.

I want to protect her the way she protected me my whole life. I got sick a lot when I was a child. I was born breech and had one leg shorter than the other. Mom had to exercise my little legs daily to help them grow. In appreciation at the time, I basically kicked and screamed my bloody head off. Then, I had my tonsils removed, and ear tubes put in. I had asthma. But Mom...she was always at my bedside with a cold compress and vicks vapor rub in the humidifier, chicken soup and a few coloring books and before you knew it, I was nursed back to health.

Even last year when I had my surgery she was at my bedside wishing, loving and praying me back to health. Thank you Mommy. I love you and I hope you know I will always be here for you. It's the least I can do. Afterall, you've done so much for me, not to mention giving me life. That's what I'd like to do for my mother. Give her chicken soup, a cold compress, a snoot full of vicks vapor rub and a smooch on the head. No more, no less. She is so precious to me.

Today, according to the American Heart Association heart disease is still the leading killer of humans. And while angioplasty and bypass surgeries are very common and safe procedures to the administrators, to us it's frightening.

And in times likes these, and when my joys are too many to count, I lean on my God in prayer. I lift up my Mother and ask God to give her peace, health and a good report. I ask God to give the doctor's energy, finesse and life in their nimble hands. I ask God to remind them that each life is precious, each procedure is a life - mother, father, sister, brother. I ask God to make Mom's path straight and restore her to good health so as to live a life long, prosperous and most comfortable. I ask these things through Christ who strengthens me. Amen.