"I'm still alive."

I had the scare of a lifetime today.

Earlier in the morning, I’d just completed a telephone call and wasn't really paying attention to my surroundings as I started the after call work when I overheard what sounded like joking amongst the people in the background. I thought that I heard one guy asked another if he had a good weekend and if he had been partying yesterday. Out of the corner of my eye, the guy that didn't really respond about the "party" started walking down the hall bumping into cubicles with a weird look on his face. Based on what thought was part of the conversation, I honestly thought he was joking about being drunk or something until I watched him bump into the hall and basically fall out of the door, hitting his head on the other wall before collapsing into a heap on the floor. I immediately jumped up and ran out to him to see what was wrong. I knelt on the floor and started talking to him. I could see that he was struggling but trying very hard to stay conscious. I could tell that his eyes kept rolling upward, but somehow he managed to mumble things or talk and he kept breathing the entire time. Meanwhile, other people were in the process of calling 911 when he started to "come to" and finally got to the point where he could sit up next to the wall instead of on the floor. After what seemed like hours (when it was only minutes), he told us not to bring the ambulance because he was feeling a little better. We eventually helped him into a rolling chair, pushed him to his phone so he could call his son, who then picked him up and took him to the hospital.

Later on in the day, we received a message that made my heart leap: three precious little words letting us know, "I'm still alive". He had gone to the hospital to find out that he didn't have a stroke, but unfortunately he did have a heart attack sometime in the past and that he would have to undergo some testing in the near future. When I sat there with him, watching him 'walk' the fine line between consciousness, he mentioned that he'd started to feel very dizzy when he was sitting at his desk so he was trying to get to the couch in the break room where he could like down. He also said that this very thing happened to him just less than a week or so ago at home. At the time, I wondered if he'd had a recent change in medications -- I hope it can be an easily cured thing.

Seeing him on the ground, ghostly white and pale, scared me to death. It reminded me of holding my father's hand when I watched him take his final breaths. I felt so inadequate then, and I felt inadequate today. I have been trained in CPR years and years ago, but I honestly don't know if I would have been able to remember the steps if needed this morning. All I could do was sit on the floor next to his body and hold his hand; trying to keep him talking to see if he remained conscious.