November 2015 began as any ordinary November. We celebrated my dad’s birthday, celebrated mine two weeks later, and then celebrated my mom’s. But in the midst of all of that, my dad had a heart catheterization scheduled for the morning of Black Friday. From then on, our lives would never be the same.

He has a history of heart issues and had a bypass in 2001. After he reported to his cardiologist that he had trouble walking up stairs without chest pain or shortness of breath, the doctor advised and scheduled a heart cath. We weren’t expecting good news, but the news we received was worse than we thought. They found three large blockages and decided to keep him in the hospital over the Thanksgiving holiday and scheduled a triple bypass for the following Monday. I was going to miss that Monday, and that’s all I expected to miss.

We expected the recovery to be quick, but late that Wednesday night, we were thrown a curve ball. His body went into shock, and he was put into a medically-induced coma. The image of my dad in the hospital bed in an ICU still haunts me. Thankfully, God saw fit to heal him, but not on our time.

He was in that coma for fourteen days, and we didn’t think that we would take him home ever again. By the week before Christmas, he was in a regular room in Spartanburg Regional’s Heart Center. We were wishing that he was home with us, but he was learning to walk again and still had far too many issues to be released. It was January 2016 before there were plans for him to return home. After a long stent at Mary Black Hospital’s Rehabilitation Facility, he finally came home in February. We were overjoyed. Life couldn’t have been better. My dad was home; he was still with us, and we were together again.

He had a long, long road to recovery, and those were the longest three months of our lives. I learned so much about myself and my family in those three short months. We were blessed to have a wonderful support system around us: our family, church family, and those doctors and nurses who we were constantly around. Even now, I couldn’t imagine going through that trial in our life without all those people around us. There were so many tear-filled, sleepless nights and long days in hospital waiting rooms.

I remember wondering if I would ever get to hug my dad again or tell him I loved him again. The whole experience taught me to treasure what I had, love who’s in my life, and always rely on God to provide and heal. I’m still trying to figure out the lesson God was teaching us through this trial, but whatever it was, my life will never be the same. Our family is finally back to some normalcy, and I’m so thankful for what has been given to me, despite any trial I’ve gone through.