You never know..

You never really know what can happen at any given moment. Saturday morning, at around 9am, my dad called me for breakfast like he always does at the weekends, with his usual cheeky comment. 5 minutes later my mum was rushing him to hospital as he was having a heart attack. Thank god my mum was there and knew what to do. She saved my dad’s life. He had a massive heart attack. I was still at home. On my own. In that hour, every thought went through my mind. But when my auntie rang me and told me what had happened, my heart broke. I couldn’t breathe. My dad had a heart attack. One of the most important people in my life, could of died. The though still makes me shudder. It’s in those moments, every memory, every word, everything that I had associated with my dad came running to my mind. By the time I got to the hospital, my dad was in St James Hospital Dublin and was having surgery. He had 3 stents put in. We were waiting on him to come out of surgery for what felt like forever. But when he came out of surgery and I got in the lift with him to go up to the coronary ward, he made a joke about me being blonde and not pressing the button to go up a floor, and I knew I hadn’t lost my dad. And although I was sitting beside his bed and could see he was okay, I can’t help but worry. Heart Attack is all that screams in my mind.

Anyone that knows me, knows that I appreciate every little thing. I keep everything no matter how big or small, if it means something, I’ll keep it. I always write down things that happened, again it doesn’t matter how big or small, I’ll write it down if it’s important to me.
But when something like this happens, it makes you want to appreciate everything even more. The simplest thing, a high five (something me and my dad do all the time) meant 100 times more to me yesterday/today than it did before. Hearing his laugh was like oxygen to me. Just being beside him was all I could ever want.
I hope and pray that my dad will make a full recovery. I hope he has a long, healthy future ahead.
I just want my dad by my side for a very long time.

You never know what could happen. Never take anything for granted.
Because it could be too late.
Appreciate everyone you love as much as you can.

I’m the luckiest girl to still have my dad, and to have my mum who saved his life.

My Dad and me at the Laois GAA Awards 2014.