The Vacation Nightmare That Changed My Life

Getting to the Hospital

On the way Cam repeated the same questions. His mind had become a colander, holding information for just seconds before it rinsed through. At first I answered him. Costa Rica. Vacation. You fell and hit your head. Then the kids took turns. Costa Rica. Vacation. You fell and hit your head.

We stopped to pick up a young doctor. After examining Cam, she told me he needed to be airlifted to the hospital in San Jose, which owned the country's only CAT-scan machine.

"Can't we drive?" I asked the doctor.

She looked me in the eye. "It takes five hours. He needs to get there quickly."

I panicked. I could barely get on a commercial plane. How was I supposed to get on a tiny one? Weren't small planes the ones most likely to crash?

"Can you just tell me what happened?" Cam's voice broke through my fluttering thoughts.

I looked down at my husband, the blanket pulled to his chin. His large blue eyes searched my face. "You fell," I said. "We're flying you to a hospital."

At the airfield I stepped out of the ambulance to catch my breath. The kids followed me out. "Is Dad going to be okay?" Simon asked.

"Yes," I said emphatically.

Finally our plane, an eight-seat turboprop, arrived. First they boarded Cam, sliding the stretcher into an open space. The doctor followed, then the kids. Then me. Relief that Cam would be getting the medical attention he needed buoyed me up the steps and onto the plane.

The engine roared, the seat vibrated, the lights on the control panel blinked, and then we were aloft. Emotions shot through me -- thrums of Cam, are you going to be all right, wiggles of I'm handling this, waves of I'm here, Lulu, it's okay. Emotions, yes, but not fear of flying. There was no room for what ifs: What if the plane crashes? What if I die? This was really happening, this sudden rearranging of priorities.

At the hospital in San Jose I put the kids, jittery with exhaustion, to bed on stretchers in the emergency room and sat next to Cam. Until 6:00 in the morning he was still asking the same three questions. But the CAT-scan of his brain was normal. No injury. No swelling. (The doctors wanted to perform tests on Cam's heart as well, but we scoffed at the idea. How could a runner have a heart problem?)

By 8:00 he started to remember. "Wait a second, did Michael Jackson die?" he asked. By 10:00 he insisted we leave and get back to our vacation. By noon we did, hiring a van to drive us to the hotel. The next day we were on horseback in the rainforest, photographing monkeys and zip-lining across the treetops.

On the flight home some of my discomfort returned. But I managed. I even drank a cup of coffee! Over a sea of heads I smiled at Cam, who'd insisted on sitting with the kids.

Back in Connecticut, Cam had a thorough physical. We learned that a major artery leading to his heart was 90 percent blocked. The cardiologist said he had probably passed out because his heart and brain weren't getting enough oxygen. The survival rate from such an episode, if you don't have access to a defibrillator (and Cam didn't), is about 10 percent. The doctor said, "You were incredibly lucky," and speculated that Cam's runner's heart resumed beating on its own only because it was so strong.

Now, thanks to a stent and cholesterol-lowering medication, Cam is back to running. I've flown a half dozen times since Costa Rica, though never without saying a prayer at takeoff and landing.

When I look back I realize that I was so afraid of catastrophic what ifs that I forgot how much what if used to thrill me. What if you drove backward? I used to wonder. What if you won a million chocolate bars? What if it was me up there, flying that plane? I loved imagining all those possibilities, optimism surging through me like current.

Before Costa Rica I'd convinced myself that avoiding air travel would cotton-wool my family and protect us forever. It wasn't true, of course, but it took Cam's collapse for me to understand that life is full of promise and danger, in the sky and on the ground. I couldn't protect my husband from his treacherous artery. I couldn't protect our children from the trauma of seeing their beloved dad -- our brainiac Mr. Fix-It -- strapped to a stretcher, dropping thoughts like petals. I can't prevent my own death.

That day taught me that all I can do is climb onboard. "Costa Rica," I often say, letting it stand for love and family and what if?

"Costa Rica," I say, as many times as we all need to hear it.

Christine Pakkala lives in Westport, Connecticut, with her family, who are now urging her to parasail. "Um...not yet," she says.