It was a dreary Saturday morning after a long night of cheering underneath the bright Friday night lights. The air was as sharp as a blade and cast a ghost-like frost from my mouth as soon as I stepped out of the door at my home where I had lived with my mother, father, and sister. It started off just as any other Saturday morning would. Izzy sat on the couch with her friend, exhausted, from staying up the night before, mom tried straightening up the house being that this was the first chance she got to after a busy week, and dad woke up at 7 a.m. to go play his usual early morning basketball game with his best friends.

After my dad finished his game, He returned home with a dozen Dunkin Donuts doughnuts and coffee for my friends and I. This was a normal part of our Saturday morning routine, but that day, something was different. My dad made a hand off of the doughnuts with me so he could go get in the shower. When he came out of his bedroom and walked down the steps, I noticed something was off. My mom greeted me by saying "Your father's shoulder is bothering him; I'm going to taking him to the doctors to get checked out." At first, this was such a vague statement, until my parents walked out the door and I started thinking; my dad never goes to the hospital. Did he get pushed playing basketball? Did he fall? What injury could be so bad that he has to go to the doctors?
As time went on, I began to become anxious. How come my mom hasn't gotten in touch with my sister or I? If he was just getting a checkup, why are my parents not home yet? I had tried calling my mother multiple times. I had heard the voicemail greeting "you have reached Laura Tierney, I am not available at this time so please leave your name and phone number and I will get back to you as soon as possible, thank you" so many times that I could recite it backward. A few hours later, my mother finally got in touch with me. I felt a sense of relief until she told me that my father needed emergency surgery. Me being clueless of the severity of the situation, I thought nothing of it. It was just a torn shoulder muscle, right?

Everything I thought up until that point was proven wrong as soon as I entered the hospital. My mother had called us and told us to meet her on the third floor. As soon as we reached the floor and the elevator doors slid open, the only thing that was in my line of sight was a big blue sign with white letters that read, “Intensive Care Unit- Third Floor”. I sat in the pale colored waiting room shaking my knee in the chair for what felt like an eternity. The room had smelled like a worn out air freshener and had an eerie vibe to it. I could just picture families sitting in there, as anxious as I was, expecting the worst answers, like I was just about to receive.

Out of the corner of my teary eye, I can see my mother walking into the waiting room. She walks over to me, rests her hand on my shoulder and said. "It's time for you to go see dad now". The look on her face made it seem like everything was alright. She looked as if nothing had gone wrong, but little did we know, behind her smile, was a woman who was broken and terrified. When we reached the hallway before entering my dad's room, she stopped in her place. "How come you're not coming, mom?" I asked, curious. "There is something I have to tell you girls" she paused and glanced at the floor. This next sentence was hard for her to get through. "You're father had a heart attack this morning." In that very moment, I felt as though there was a giant cinder block being thrown into my chest, my body collapsed in pain. How could this happen? How could my father have a heart attack at the age of 37? Is he alive? My stomach was in knots. My eyes became a waterfall and everything became a blur.  About 610,000 people in America have heart disease, how could my athletic, young dad be one in 610,000?

I finally built up the strength to face my biggest fear, I walked into the room and saw my father covered in wires, attached to loud beeping machines, and watched him lay there helplessly but faking being alright. I tried to hold back my tears, but my eyes were not strong enough. My tears were a mix of confusion, heartbreak, and horror. I was only allowed to see him for a very short period of time. Being that I couldn’t contain myself, my family did not want me to increase his heart rate by letting him see me in this condition.

Before this horrific event took place, I was carefree and unaware of how life works. I believed that there was a bubble around me and everyone I cared about and thought I was invincible. It took my dad almost leaving me to realize that I am not a special case. I am not invincible. I do not have the power to make everything in my life work the way I would like it to. The world works in strange ways. Although this was the worst experience of my life, I learned that my health does matter, family does matter, and how you treat your body does matter. I am now a more anxious person when it comes to my dad's health. I realized how much he truly does mean to me and I realized how lost I would be without him. My dad's heart disease may have affected all of my family in a negative way, but it also made us that much more appreciative of each other and what we have.