wake-up call

by Nicole Dahmen

I woke up in the middle of the night and heard my husband downstairs. Billy often stayed up far later than me, but he was usually quiet. This night, it sounded like he was bumping into the walls or maybe even gasping? The clock read 2 a.m., and I was annoyed that he was making noise—especially because the next day we were all headed back to school and work after the winter holidays. I was past ready for a normal schedule.

I sighed, rolled over, and tried to go back to sleep.

But the uncanny sounds coming from the living room below gave me a growing sense of unease.

I should get up and check on him, I thought. That’s what a loving wife would do.

I didn’t move, and my resentment was now clouded with guilt.

A few minutes later, I heard him stumbling up the stairs.

“Nicole,” he said when he reached the door of our bedroom. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”

“You’re only thirty-six years old,” I said. “You’re not having a heart attack.”

“My left arm is numb, and I have serious chest pain,” he said. His breath was labored, and I could hear the panic in his trademark raspy voice. “I could barely get upstairs.”

I reached over and turned on the lamp.

“Call 911,” he said.

When the lamplight reached his face, my concern grew. His skin was sickly pale and clammy. I had doubts about the severity of whatever this was, but I could tell he was in pain—and scared.

But still, I figured he was just having a panic attack, or even indigestion. And I could already see what would happen. The ambulance would arrive, which would wake up our two children, and the paramedics would then say that nothing was wrong. We’d all be up for the rest of the night, and I’d be exhausted the entire next day. And then a month later we’d get a medical bill that we couldn’t afford.

I grabbed my phone and dialed the number anyway.

“9-1-1. What is your emergency?” said the woman on the other end of the phone line.

“My husband thinks he’s having a heart attack,” I said.

The operator launched into a series of questions.

I answered them all, doing exactly what she said. She stayed on the phone while I followed her directions.

“Billy, lie on your left side,” I said. “I’m going to find the aspirin.”

I shoved two aspirin into his hand and told him to chew them up before he swallowed them.

The 911 dispatcher said the ambulance was on the way, and then she hung up.

We sat quietly for a few minutes, my mind spinning.

I don’t want the paramedics in our bedroom, I thought. I need to get him downstairs.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go downstairs.”

“I don’t know if I can make it,” he said.

“I’ll help you,” I said and grabbed his hand. I was trying to be kind, having accepted the reality that I wouldn’t be getting any more sleep and that we were going to be out several thousand dollars.

We eased down the stairs, and I attempted to support his weight the best I could. When we reached the living room, I helped him to the sofa and then sprang into action.

I moved the coffee table away from the sofa and shoved all the shoes away from the front door to make a clear path and then ran upstairs to put on a sweatshirt and jeans. I raced back downstairs and sat on the sofa next to Billy, holding his hand.

And then we waited for the sirens.

The paramedics were at the door five minutes later. They unpacked their bags and started doing all sorts of tests, asking us both a lot of questions.

They started putting heart monitors on his chest. I was just in the way at that point, and I was worried about our kids coming downstairs to the shock of this unfolding scene, so I perched on the landing at an angle that allowed me to monitor both the living room and the direction of our children’s bedrooms.

A few minutes later, both kids emerged from their bedrooms, and I jumped up and guided them to the upstairs sofa.

“What’s happening?” our son asked. His dark brown hair was just long enough to fall into his eyes, and he swept it to the side with his hand. He was especially sensitive to life not going “according to plan,” and I could hear the rising anxiety in his voice. Our daughter, who typically expressed her needs with the urgency of a squawking baby bird, stood quietly by his side. They were still young, just ten and nine years old, and they looked especially innocent in their coordinating pajamas—a fashion favorite of mine that I knew was in its waning years.

“Dad doesn’t feel good. We called the ambulance just so they could check him out,” I said. I tried to balance nonchalance with comfort. “He’s going to be fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

One of the paramedics called out, “Ma’am, can you come back down here?”

I reached the living room, and my throat tightened. Billy was on the stretcher, and the paramedics were strapping him down. An oxygen mask covered his face, and he had an IV in his arm.

The adrenaline coursing through my body jolted me into the realization that something might actually be wrong.

“You’re taking him to the hospital?” I asked. My hands were trembling.

“Yes, ma’am,” the paramedic said. “He’s got some elevated numbers, and we want to get him checked out.”

That’s all they told me.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“You can follow in your car. We’re taking him to Sacred Heart Hospital at Riverbend,” the paramedic said.

I looked down at Billy, made eye contact ,and grabbed his hand. “You’re going to be okay,” I said. “I’ll come get you at the hospital.”

And then they were gone.

I hurried back upstairs to our kids. I didn’t want them to look out of the window and see the ambulance pull away with their father in the back.

It was now 3 a.m. and way too early to call my mother. I wasn’t going to take the kids to the hospital in the middle of the night, and I wasn’t going to leave them home alone. So I assured our kids that Dad was okay and calmly got both of them into bed, though I didn’t expect either of them to fall back to sleep.

I sat on the sofa just outside of their rooms and caught my breath. When neither of them immediately got out of bed, I went upstairs to our bedroom.

I should go to the hospital, I thought. What kind of wife doesn't rush off to the hospital to be at her husband’s side?

The answer was obvious: the crappy kind.

I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at my phone, unsure of what to do with it.

When there was still no noise from the kids, I went to check on them. To my great surprise, they were both asleep.

Now what? I thought.

I got into our bed, rolled over, and stared at Billy’s pillow.

I can’t leave now, I thought. The kids just went back to sleep and the garage door would wake them. And I’m not leaving them alone.

Guilty thoughts ran through my mind. I should have followed the ambulance to the hospital. I should have loaded the kids in the car, and we all should have gone to the hospital.

I didn’t know what would happen next. Would the hospital call? Was I supposed to call them? Would Billy call me?

Nothing happened.

At 5:30 a.m., I got up and showered and put on a favorite sweater, baggy jeans, and UGGs, and I made the kids breakfast and woke them up.

“Everything is okay. I’m going to get Dad at the hospital,” I said. “Get up and eat breakfast, and I’ll be back soon.”

I felt a bit more comfortable about leaving the kids now that it was morning. And I figured Billy and I would be back home in about an hour. I grabbed the keys and headed out the door.

The roads were dark, the January sun still hours away from rising. Headlights from other cars on the interstate flashed in my eyes.

I suddenly remembered a moment from the previous summer. A colleague’s husband had died unexpectedly. I’d only met him a few times, but Julie was a mentor, a woman I greatly respected. The memorial service was held on the banks of the Willamette River on a lingering summer afternoon. The service was beautifully sad, and the empty chair next to me was a stark reminder that I was at the service alone. Billy and I rarely went anywhere together.

My colleague and her husband had been married a long time, and I knew it was a second marriage for both of them. Julie spoke at the service, and as bereft as I knew her to be, she appeared the epitome of grace and wisdom.

“You, Rick, were the love of my life,” she read from a poem she’d written. The sun reflected in her blond hair.

I looked up on the interstate and realized it was starting to rain. I’d never been to this hospital before, and I didn’t know exactly how to get there.

My colleagues’ words hung in the air in front of me with the weight of the storm clouds looming above.

The love of my life. The love of my life. Is Billy the love of my life? I thought. Have I ever had a ‘love of my life’?

My mind was still racing, playing the tapes of all scenarios.

If Billy died, could I stand up to the world and call him ‘the love of my life?’

I started practicing my speech.

“Billy saved my life. I believe I’d be dead today if I hadn’t met him,” I’d recite in front of the crowd on the banks of the Willamette River, just upstream from the forest where he’d chopped down our Christmas tree the month before.

“He made me a wife and mother,” I’d say. “And for that, I’m truly grateful.”

We’d gotten married for all the right reasons, and from the outside, we had a beautiful magazine-cover life. Multiple rounds of couples counseling had taught us about communication styles, love languages, and resolving conflicts, but we just couldn’t seem to connect. We’d become strangers who were parallel living under the same vaulted ceilings and architectural shingles. He was a good man, and I truly loved him. But there was a deep void between loving him and being in love with him.

In closing, I’d call him, “the bravest person I knew.”

Those were all truths.

But I couldn’t call him “the love of my life.” If it were true, I’d already be at the hospital.

About ten minutes later, I turned into a parking lot I’d never been to and followed the “Emergency Room” signs.

I hope he’s ready to go, I thought. I don’t want to have to wait too long.

My phone rang while I was walking into the emergency room.

“Is this Mrs. Dahmen?” a woman asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“I’m a nurse at Sacred Heart Hospital. I’m with your husband. Where are you?” she asked.

“I just got to the hospital,” I said. “Where should I go?”

“We’re upstairs in room 512,” she said.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Just come upstairs,” she said. “I’ll fill you in when you get here.”

I found the elevator and pushed the button for the fifth floor.

Why’s he in a room? I thought, knowing—as I had all along—that something was terribly wrong.

I found room 512 and pushed open the door. The coldness of the sterile scene took me aback.

And then I saw him.

Billy lay in a hospital bed, wires and tubes attached to what seemed like his entire body.

“Your husband had a major heart attack,” the nurse said, calmly. “He’s lucky to be alive.”

I rushed to the bed but wasn’t sure where I could touch him. IVs lined his left arm, and his right arm was bandaged and braced.

I put my hand on his broad shoulder and leaned in close. Our eyes found each other, and the tears on the surface of his blue eyes told me he was scared. I was, too.

“Your husband had an emergency cath procedure,” she said. “The doctor was able to remove the blockage, and he placed four stents in coronary arteries.”

I wasn’t able to process any of this, but she kept talking.

“It’s a good thing you called 911 when you did,” she said.

“You mean he could have died?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” she said. “It’s very serious. But he’s stable now.”

I looked more closely at his right arm. The giant brace was protecting the inside of his wrist, which had a fresh wound about the size of the standard 2x4 Lego bricks that were strewn across our house.

“That’s where they go in for the cath procedure,” the nurse explained.

“I’m so sorry, Billy,” I whispered to him. “We’ll get through this.”

My husband didn’t deserve this. My husband who had nearly died in a gasoline fire when he was just ten years old. My husband who had to learn to walk again. My husband who was covered in burn scars. My husband who had helped me find peace with my own burn scars.

He deserved so much better.

Billy was in the hospital for three days. I spent those days acting like a wife.

I called his mother. “It’s scary,” I said. “But he’s going to be okay.”

I sat by his bedside and held his hand.

At the pharmacy, I filled his prescriptions and picked out a weekly pill dispenser for all his new medications.

I greeted Billy’s friends when they came to visit, making jokes with them and doting on him.

I brought our kids to see him, and I patiently and honestly answered all of their difficult questions. “Dad’s heart needed surgery, but the doctor fixed it and he’s okay now.”

Billy was in graduate school, so I called his professors. “Hi, this is Billy Dahmen’s wife,” I said. “I’m calling to let you know that he’s in the hospital and won’t be in class this week.”

I didn’t tell them that I was one of their faculty colleagues at the University of Oregon. What a bizarre irony to be on that side of the phone. I was usually the one fielding calls about concussions and the flu and dead grandmothers.

I broke down one afternoon and called my friend Angie and sobbed into the receiver.

Angie was the friend I called when things happened in my life. She was the first person I called after I met Billy. “I think I’m in love,” I told her. She stood by my side the night we got married. “Please help me get through today,” I told her the morning of our wedding. And she was the one I’d called two years earlier from the parking garage at work. “I can’t be married anymore,” I told her.

This time I was calling her from a hospital corridor.

“I’m too young to be doing this,” I told her on the phone.

“Yes, you are,” she said. “But you don’t have a choice.”

The next day, on our son’s eleventh birthday, Billy was discharged from the hospital. While we were leaving through the hospital front doors—a nurse pushing Billy in a wheelchair and me walking by his side—I stopped and pulled my phone out of my pocket. I leaned down next to him, put my face close to his, and took a selfie of the two of us. Him, wearing a blue plaid flannel shirt and looking equal parts grunge and forester. Me, wearing a white sweater and a lightweight winter scarf. We both had gentle smiles, our heads tilted together with my head slightly above his.

Later that evening, I posted the photo to Instagram with the caption, “Discharged! Full recovery expected, no permanent damage.”

I studied the image on my phone screen, and through the grainy filter, I saw more.

I’d been playing the role of dutiful wife. But the thing was, my feelings and actions through the entire experience were genuine—perhaps the first truly genuine feelings I’d had for him and our relationship in a long time.

We’d been married for twelve years and one month. Billy deserved happiness, a happiness I’d never be able to give him and a happiness I’d never be able to find with him.

What I felt leaving the hospital that day was a renewed hope—not for our marriage but for our family. The four of us would be able to find a way past our marriage.

About the author:

Nicole Dahmen is a professor at the University of Oregon where she teaches courses in journalism, ethics, and creative nonfiction. Her research seeks to advance public-interest journalism—reporting that holds the powerful accountable, elevates underrepresented voices, and makes a positive impact for society. She’s published more than 40 peer-reviewed journal articles, and she’s been quoted in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, with her family, which includes her two teenagers and, in a home nearby, their father who summited Mount St. Helens six months after having a major myocardial infarction.