Welcome to our journey!

Welcome to our journey! Jonathan Barry (Barry) has had quite a week! A few days ago, Barry felt a little pain in his chest while working. Just a little high on the chest tightness at first. Over the next days and hours the pain changed to something much more like muscle cramping. When we pressed on the area of pain, we felt lots of muscle soreness. He took pulse, blood pressure and didn't have labored breathing or lightheadedness. Over the next two days the pain didn't improve, seemed even more muscular and then a fever started mostly at night. After 2 nights of this (each day spent working trying to get a roof covered up before a storm) I made an appointment for the doctor.

He worked that morning till about 11:15 on the roof project and we went to the doctor for an 11:50 appt. Doctor checked him out and sent him for an EKG (to rule out heart problem), a chest xray (she suspected walking pneumonia) and a blood test. The first stop was EKG and the adventure was afoot!

The EKG tech took about 15 seconds of measurement, left the room quickly to look for a baseline EKG in his chart. He had no previous EKG. Within 15 seconds a lovely "flying V" of about 5 people swooped in with a cardiologist at the head. A flurry of questions like "Are you having chest pain? Are you allergic to aspirin? You're not having any chest pain right now? Are you sure? How are you feeling? " This lasted about two minutes and they had him up in a wheelchair and literally ran with him across the street to the Emergency Room. One tech literally ran ahead to alert the ER to get a heart team ready. Within seconds of arriving in the ER, they began prepping him for an angiogram and potentially an angioplasty. They did put in a stint.

At 51, (52 on Tuesday!) Barry has had a major heart attack. The main artery into his heart (the LAD) was 100% occluded. Another is 30% occluded. The one stint was all they chose to do for now. He will begin a heart care path to healing now.

This is Barry's 3rd day in ICU but they are considering moving him to a regular floor. He's behaving himself pretty well. The nurses are excellent and he's befriended and charmed every one of them. He's the most communicative and healthy patient in the area so he's been pretty interactive. He's mostly been resting and visiting. He's a little weary of being so tied up with IV's and tubing.

Yesterday they got him up into a chair for awhile and was doing great until a huge blood pressure drop caused him to nearly faint. They put him back in bed and things stabilized well. His heart rate is still quite high and fluctuating.

The ultrasound of the heart showed some positive things. The doctor saw some parts of the front of the heart muscle that has been damaged was showing clusters of activity that looked like a good sign. Perhaps the whole front of the heart is not as damaged as it appeared to be. There are still many unknowns. But so far other than weakness he's doing and looking really well.
Tons of people have been praying. The biggest challenge has been to get the word out easily and quickly without blasting the difficult news across the pages of facebook. I apologize for any delay or inconsistency in updating everyone The prayers and messages received the past few days have been hugely comforting, healing and helpful.

As for how people can support Barry right now, prayer is number one! As soon as we can figure out how else people can help we'll post it. Those of you who've been through this are welcome to suggest things. Jonathan Barry, better known as Barry to local friends and family, is a man of many interests and talents. He's an amazing husband and dad. His bday is on Tuesday!!! (And it looks like he'll be here for it after all!) Our 32nd anniversary is on Thursday. (We're especially thankful this year!) Our four kids are much loved and quite amazing people~

Barry wears a lot of hats in life in addition to husband and father. His job is that of a building contractor. He's a pastor to our Missio Dei Faith Community and a missionary/prayer intercessor to the Entertainment Industry. He's an actor and loves writing and directing.