December 2008 – "Wakeup Call" – Part 1

Setting the Stage:

The year had been hectic.  No, insane is probably a better word by which to describe it. At work, I had been heavily involved in two mission/business critical projects that were inseparably tied together and which resulted in many of us working twelve hours a day or more for six and frequently seven days a week throughout the year. The first involved a major conversion from the existing mobility payroll system to that of the AT&T parent. While there was a great deal of work that had to be done in order to make this happen by year end, this was really the easier of the two projects in that it had a relatively well defined set of requirements. The second project was far more difficult. It required the development of an interface that would transfer actual time worked for hourly employees from the mobility time reporting system to the AT&T payroll system. The alternative to such as system as the one in mobility would be exception reporting where employees report only the time they have missed. Experience has shown us that employees are unlikely to report that they showed up ten minutes late, had a longer than allowed lunch break, or left a few minutes early. Our positive pay system had resulted in savings of several million dollars every year that it had been used, so it was very much in the best interest of the company. Unfortunately we were constantly being hit with changing requirements in what was to be reported to the payroll system, when it was to be reported, and the structure of the interface files themselves. Simply put, it was a pain in the neck to have to keep rewriting the extract procedures, and required changes were still being received just days before the project was due. As you might expect, there were not many happy people in my group, and clearly I was looking forward to a December get away with my Princess.

December 2008 – "Wakeup Call" – Part 2

Wedding Day:

Plans had long been in place for us to travel to Utah where we could get together with all of our children and grandchildren for several days. Excitement was running high for everyone, as it had been several years since all of us had been together at the same time. Three major events had been scheduled. At least, they were “major” in my mind, and I was looking forward to them with great enthusiasm. The first was the wedding of our son David to Kristy Tew on Friday, December 19th in the Jordan River Temple. Temple weddings or sealings are of great importance to our family, and David became the seventh of our eight children to get married. All of them have been married in the Temple. As Latter-day Saints, we consider it both an obligation and a privilege to enter the Temple of our God and to there take part in the sacred of ordinances of salvation. And temple marriage or sealing is perhaps the most sacred of all of those ordinances. All who wish to enter the Temple must be interviewed by men who have been called to act as judges within the church and found worthy by those men before they may go in. With even that small understanding of what the Temple means to us as a family, it might be understandable by all when as a father I was able to sit in the Sealing Room of this Temple and see all of my children gathered there along with their spouses to celebrate this special day. At the same time, I had the comforting assurance that all of my grandchildren were also in the Temple waiting for the sealing ceremony to be concluded so that they could join us in the entryway and share in the joy together as a family. Again, for those not familiar with our ceremonies, children are not allowed in the sealing rooms of the Temples for such events as these. It may seem a hard thing, but our little ones understand, and rest assured, they get to share in the wedding cake and other goodies to their hearts content.

I am grateful for all of my children and grandchildren. They are a comfort to me and a joy that I can not fully describe. And when I speak of my children, I mean both my own children and those wonderful men and women that they have married. I no longer distinguish between them. I see all of them as being my children and I love them all. We have a sign on our refrigerator door at home that says, “No Empty Chairs”. It makes allusion to that time when we have all passed through mortality and our loving Father in Heaven has called us all together and expresses our desire that we should all be gathered in together, and that in the last judgment, none of us have been found wanting. I could not help thinking that for us there were “No Empty Chairs” that day in the Jordan River Temple.

December 2008 – "Wakeup Call" – Part 3

Blessing Avery:

Event number two took place on Sunday, December 21st at my daughter Jennifer’s house. There in the early afternoon, all of us again joined together to take part in yet another of the great Priesthood ordinances. This one was performed by Joe Jackson, Kathryn’s husband, where he pronounced a name and a blessing on their daughter Avery. What a privilege it was for me to stand in that Priesthood circle with all of my sons to share in this special ordinance. The blessing of an infant is not one that requires the sealing powers of the Temple, but it is still an important ceremony, and one in which all of the men in my family were worthy to take part. My wife and I are truly blessed.

The third one was, of course, Christmas with a gaggle of Sauters! But talking of it here would be a bit out of place, and while this narrative is not overly concerned with time-lines, I’ll still hold off until we get there. Author’s prerogative you might say.

December 2008 – "Wakeup Call" – Part 4

Finding  the Problem:

Just for those who need the comfort of specific dates, I can tell you that Georgia (also known as my Princess, my Bride, my Sweetheart, and many other endearing names) and I arrived in Utah on the 17th of December. The weather was pretty cold and it snowed regularly. Usually we either get a motel room or stay with Jennifer, but this time Ben and Melissa were gracious enough to offer us a place to stay, and we were delighted to take them up on their offer. Yes, I love my grandkids, but staying with Ben and Melissa promised to be much quieter, and being an old fogey, quiet is sometimes the name of the game! Unfortunately, it isn’t a need for quiet that proved to be a problem. It was a matter of not being able to breathe comfortably which kept me from getting to sleep. Every time I lay down I found myself having difficulty in getting enough oxygen into my lungs, but I attributed it to the altitude change and expected it to go away in a day or so. An extra pillow to prop me up seemed to help considerably. However, this continued for a couple of days, but I still blamed it on an inability to adjust to the change in elevation. Bad guess! Each night got a bit worse, and I was getting really annoyed at my inability to adjust to the altitude. However, it did not interfere with either the wedding or the family get together on Sunday. It was just an annoyance; until Sunday night.

It was then that I spent most of the night sitting up on a couch in the basement until I transferred to an upstairs couch. Sleep, or the lack of it, was no longer the issue. It had gotten to the point where I was having great difficulty breathing even when sitting up, and lying down was totally out of the question. By the time Ben and Melissa got up on Monday morning I was markedly worse. Walking had become a terrible chore, and it exhausted me just to cross the room. Even for “Mr. I’ll be OK” it was obvious that something needed to be done. Something like seeing a doctor. I think my Sweetheart almost went into cardiac arrest when I suggested that it might be a good thing if I saw a doctor. She has since told me that she had been waiting twenty years to hear me say that, and particularly that last year when I was working killer hours. Melissa got us the address for the nearby Instacare which is basically a “doc in a box.” A place you go when you don’t have a doctor of your own. In this case, it was one associated with the hospital where her father practices which did give me a pretty good level of comfort.

December 2008 – "Wakeup Call" – Part 5

Seeing the Doctor:

Georgia drove me over to the facility and we went in for the “long wait” to be seen. Surprisingly, it was not that long; perhaps an hour as I recall. I was seen by a real doctor who gave me an examination that was thorough at least as it related to the symptoms I described. It included an EKG, and when he was done, he told me that I had fluid on my lungs and that a shot of lasix should take care of things. Since he hadn’t really gone into my history, I asked him if it would impact his diagnosis at all to know that I had had open heart surgery in 1985 with a quintuple bypass? Oh yeah, that made a big difference. He disappeared for about fifteen or twenty minutes, and when he returned he said that because of my history I needed to get myself up the street to the emergency room at the hospital. At that point, he had my attention! We were no longer talking about some other way he could treat me there, we were talking serious stuff with more in depth examinations in the ER. Assuring me that they would be expecting me and that he would transfer all of the data he had directly to them, he packed us off to the emergency room at Alta View Hospital.

Within just a few minutes, Georgia and I were in the emergency room, and while they were not actually expecting me when we walked in, they did get everything from the doctor I had already seen within five minutes of our arrival at the ER. With some degree of annoyance, I left Georgia in the waiting room while I went back to one of the examination rooms. Unless it is something that is going to leave me with no degree of modesty, I really prefer to have Georgia with me for any doctor visits and examinations. Simply put, two sets of ears are better than one. And my boss of bosses knows the right questions to ask. Often times I don’t. Anyhow, there were more EKGs and a lot of listening to my chest and back. This led the ER physician to a diagnosis of congestive heart failure. Now they really had my attention! Simply put, congestive heart failure is a condition in which the heart can no longer pump enough blood to the rest of the body. In my case, it was also resulting in excessive fluid retention. Finally I was able to have Georgia join me in the examination room. I was given a shot of lasix which resulted in a rather quick resolution to the fluid retention symptom; though it kept me using a portable urinal every few minutes for about an hour and a half. That was followed up with a prescription for furosemide to help keep the “evil fluids” at bay. But this was only something that addressed one of the more uncomfortable symptoms that I was having. It did nothing to resolve the underlying problem, but oh did I feel better! Once again I could breathe, and even walk across the room without collapsing.

The ER physician carefully explained to us the nature of the illness and highly recommended that I see a cardiologist as soon as possible. He made it clear that the next morning would be just the ticket, and that he would be able to set an appointment for me with a staff cardiologist at 7:30 AM. The hour was early, but we were talking about my life here, and I wasn’t going to be put off by the time.

December 2008 – "Wakeup Call" – Part 6

The Cardiologist:

The next morning David drove me to the office of Dr. Ruben Zito. We got there about twenty minutes after seven, and to my very great surprise, not only was the office was staffed, but they were expecting me. Two tests had been scheduled for me. The first was an echocardiogram and the second a stress test. While I had rather expected that I would probably not see Dr. Zito until all the testing had been completed, I was pleasantly surprised when he sat down with me first thing that morning and discussed my history and what was going to be done that day. I couldn’t help but laugh quietly to myself at his response when I told him that I had open heart surgery nearly twenty-four years previously and had not seen a doctor in twenty years. He just could not get over that and kept saying, “Twenty-four years.” It may be that there was a question mark there and not a period! He then met with me again after each step was completed, and I don’t think that I could have been given better care than I got that day. I still laugh that he kept saying “Twenty-four years?” over and over during the course of the morning and finally told me bypass surgery in mid-1980s was generally only good for about ten years. He just could not get over the fact that it had been twenty-four years for me.

Once the tests were complete, he sat down with me to go over the results. The most critical was data from the echocardiogram. It showed that my heart was only pumping about 32% of the blood from the left ventricle. The normal heart pumps out about 50-55%; which meant I was functioning at about 60% of normal. Not a good thing. He suggested that he perform an angiogram the next morning to get more information. I had to think about that one for a few minutes, and finally declined. There were a number of considerations. First, I just did not want to be having any sort of surgery the day before Christmas. Second, I really wanted to find a cardiologist at home where we could perform the surgery and develop a long term plan for my care. That was not going to be possible therein Utah. He understood both of those reasons and advised me most strenuously to make contacting a cardiologist in the Dallas area a top priority once I returned home. He also made sure that I had copies of everything that had been done over the previous two days. Armed with prescriptions enough to keep the fluids flushed from my system for the next several days, I was ready to enjoy Christmas with my family. Event number three was just hours away.

December 2008 – "Wakeup Call" – Part 7

Christmas and Home:


Tuesday with the doctor quickly gave way to Wednesday with the family and Christmas Eve! For me, the highlight of that Christmas Eve together was our family show. Everyone had to participate. All took part and contributed to a night time of fun that focused on celebrating the birth of the Savior. There were songs and stories and dramas and comedies and food. There were laughter and tears and hugs and kisses and food. We had everything that one could want. And did I mention there was food? We were together as a family; every one of us. Grandpa Richard, that’s me, being singularly devoid of many talents, bore his testimony of the Church, the Gospel, the Savior, and our Heavenly Father. It was good for my children and grandchildren to hear that directly from me. Grandma Georgia, that’s my Princess, shared her thoughts and feelings as well. She touched all of our hearts that night. Both from what she said and from the obvious love she has for all of those things of which I testified. The real spiritual giant of the family touched us all. It was a night of fun enjoyed by all and of love expressed and understood as well. Did I mention there was food?

Christmas Eve turned into the early hours of Christmas morning, and finally play time was over. The snow that had been falling throughout the week returned, and what we thought might be a scattering turned into several inches at Jennifer’s house and across the area. The weather just wasn’t our friend that night! Many of those who were not spending the night had very long rides home. And the general consensus was that Grandpa and Grandma should not tempt fate by driving back to Ben and Melissa’s house. I gotta admit that it was great to spend the night in the kids’ beds rather than fighting snow. Thanks kids! Christmas morning dawned clear and bright, and the snow had given way to a gorgeous sunny day. Individual families had the chance to celebrate on their own that morning, and then once again Jennifer and Kelly opened their home to us and made it possible for all to enjoy Christmas Day together. Not surprisingly, a great feast was again laid out again, and no one went away hungry. We played and talked and laughed and shared the love we have for each other openly and freely. It was the best Christmas I have ever had. Why? Because we were all together; there were no empty chairs.


Two days later, on Saturday, December 27th I caught a flight back to Dallas and returned to what should have been the wrap up of the projects on which we had been working all year.  Guess again.  Once more there had been changes to the required deliverables, and the long hours continued for many.  But for me, those had become a thing of the past.  The wakeup call had been sounded, and it had been heard loud and clear.