A medical emergency can create a full-blown crisis in a person’s life or it can be a blip on the radar, depending on how well-prepared an individual is.
For Jerry and Ann Andrews, owners of Andrews Funeral Home & Crematory in Gloucester, a heart attack experienced while away from home proved to be the latter, thanks to the couple’s well-thought-out management of their business and personal lives.
The Andrews have been attending the annual Virginia Funeral Directors Association convention every year for decades. For Jerry, attendance started nearly six decades ago, when he was just eight years old. His father was a funeral director, and the convention was a family affair, so he attended and made lifelong friendships among other children who also took up the family business.
This year, the convention was held in June in Virginia Beach, and the Andrews had a grand old time getting together with old friends and like-minded people, learning new things, relaxing in the nice weather, and dancing the final night away to the music of their favorite band, Brass Winds.
“It was one of the best conventions we’ve ever been to,” said Ann. “We were surrounded by good friends.”
Jerry didn’t sleep well that night. He woke up at 3 a.m., restless and unable to get comfortable. He was up and down, pacing to the bathroom and back, trying to settle back down and sleep. He told Ann his shoulders hurt, and she thought he must finally be feeling the effects of sleeping in an unfamiliar bed—something she had struggled with from the first night.
“I thought the mattress had finally done him in like it had done me in,” she said with a laugh.
But soon Jerry was throwing up with such force that his chest hurt, and he figured he’d pulled a muscle. “The pain wasn’t severe,” he said. “Just aggravating.” Ann reached out to a friend at the convention who was both a funeral director and a fire chief and asked him to drop by their room and give them an opinion on what the problem might be. The friend took Jerry’s pulse, listened to his symptoms, and said that everything seemed to be pointing to a possible gall bladder problem. Jerry’s only ongoing health issue was high blood pressure, and he said he had none of the normal warning signs of a heart attack—no persistent, crushing chest or arm pain, no pale, clammy skin—and his pulse was good.
Nevertheless, the Andrews were worried, and they wanted to get back home and seek medical help as quickly as possible. The problem was that Ann had never driven Jerry’s Suburban, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to drive it while distracted and panicky over Jerry’s condition, so they called their children. Soon, daughter Hope was on the way, along with her husband Nick and their children, Jack and Kate. It was Jack’s 10th birthday.
“He didn’t want to come,” said Ann with a laugh. “He knew it was serious business.”
The two cars caravanned back to Gloucester, where Jerry went straight to Riverside Walter Reed Hospital.
“We’re really lucky to have it here,” said Ann. “They treated us so well.”
Tests showed that Jerry had suffered a heart attack and that his right coronary artery was 100 percent blocked. He would need catheterization. The doctor at Walter Reed reached out to Riverside Regional, but there were no beds available there, so Jerry would have to go to Sentara CarePlex in Hampton. By this time, it was almost 8 a.m., and the hospital was told that a transport ambulance wouldn’t be available until 11 o’clock that night, so the Andrews called Gloucester Volunteer Fire and Rescue Squad. An ambulance was there within minutes.
“We felt he was in much better hands with them,” said Ann. “We forget sometimes how important our volunteers are.”
By 9 a.m., Jerry was at Sentara. He had the catheterization that day, a Thursday, and was sent home the next day after receiving “excellent care.” By Monday morning, he was back at work, his only restriction that he not do any heavy lifting for a week.
Jerry said he had been chastised by his doctors for bypassing several hospitals rather than seeking medical help at the closest one, and he admitted that had been a mistake and he had learned his lesson.
But the couple felt that, other than that, their pre-planning for emergencies is solid. Their daughters Hope and Jeri Lee live close by with their families, said Ann, and the entire family works together as a team. One daughter or the other was at the hospital throughout the ordeal, he said. They took notes on their phones to share with each other to make sure everyone was on the same page at all times.
All of the couple’s estate planning is in order and their business will be in good hands if anything goes wrong again. Son-in-law Justin Russ is a funeral service trainee who has earned an applied science degree in funeral service, completed an internship, and is preparing to take his boards for his license. He is capable of running the business, said Ann. Hope and Jeri Lee know where all of their parents’ important papers are, know all of their passwords to access all of their technology, and even know what day their trash gets picked up.
“If something happens, everybody knows what to do,” said Ann. “We’re really so lucky we all live within a five-mile radius of each other.”
Still, the Andrews will pay more attention to the signs of any health issues in the future.
“This has been such an experience,” said Ann. “Something we never thought we’d have to go through. The Lord was certainly watching over these two crazy people.”