Perspective

I learned today that my brother, who is only 34 years old, has had a heart attack.  He and my niece and his new wife and her family were in Hawaii on vacation when he started having numbness and tingling in his arms while swimming.  It continued to progress at which time his wife took him to the emergency room.  He was in fact having a heart attack.  My niece is there with none of her family.  She doesn't really know the new wife and her family very well.  My brother is having very invasive surgical type testing done and so we don't know his prognosis at this time or what their course of treatment will be.  He is stable, which is the good news, and the ultrasound shows minimal damage as far as they can tell, but they don't really know anything yet.  All of the tests they are having to do are invasive and always risky.  Not only that, but he is in Hawaii, so we are all very concerned about what will happen when he is released (whenever that may be) as far as air travel.  We are really hoping they will air lift him to California or something with medical teams on board and then whenever it is safe for him to travel, the flight back to Texas would be much shorter, thus decreasing the risk of blood clots (generally it isn't good to spend time inactive in the hospital and then spend however many hours inactive on a plane).  My 13 year old niece is completely freaked out and there is nothing I can do for her other than talk to her.

I hadn't spoken to my brother in a few months after a dispute (family dispute over something silly of course that seemed like a big deal to him, but to the rest of us didn't seem worth the fight).  This is one of those times where I feel like a hypocrite because I always say how important it is to make sure that the people you love know you love them before it is too late and now here I am, my brother having a close call, and I hadn't spoken to him in a few months.

I have nothing else that I can do or say at this moment.  This has not been a good year.