His daughter challenged him to doing something “other than being in the hospital” this holiday season, as last year on Thanksgiving Day Bob Willis, of Willis Financial and devout Kiwanian was facing quadruple bypass surgery.
This year, due to what he said is a miraculous recovery, he was walking in the world wide known Turkey Trot held every year in downtown Dallas.
The Turkey Trot proceeds benefit the YMCA.
Willis could be described as family man, spiritual man and businessman and most obviously a community service man. He and his wife, Linda, have two adult daughters, Dawn and Staci, and two grandchildren.
Willis described some of the events that led up to his surgery and his new outlook on health and life. He said the night before Thanksgiving day, 2008, he had a sleepless night and suffered some numbness around five in the morning. He had taken a dose of Benedryl and cough syrup hoping to get some rest so he would feel energetic on Thanksgiving Day.
He told his wife about his sleepless night and the numbness he had felt. He said he had an unusual experience which included some frightening thoughts and visions about death as he had struggled to sleep for most of the night.
“Linda pretty much thought, well you are overmedicated, and we wrote it off to that for the rest of the morning.
Everybody started coming, and just as we were about to say the blessing, my grandson ran up and wanted me to pick him up, and so I did and that is when it happened and the numbness returned a second time. It had come about five in the morning and then it came again about noon and then I knew I had to get some attention,” Willis said.
He said his wife and daughter, Dawn, left with him to go to the emergency room and he said his daughter asked where he wanted to be taken to Hope or Texarkana.
“I told her St. Michael, but then I wasn’t sure that was a good decision. We bypass an emergency room about three minutes from our house and also on my mind as well was on May 1 of 2007, my wife Linda had a diabetic seizure,” Willis said.
He said at the time they were taking his wife to the hospital, he had his daughter call a good friend, Dr. Harris, and asked if they should take her to Texarkana or the Hope hospital.
“The decision to tell me to go to Hope saved her life, literally,” Willis said.
The Willis family almost lost Linda and said they feel as though they have two miracle stories in their lives.
“We had two years of very stressful events and I was always the caregiver, so a year ago, they had code blue and did electric shock. She was not out but, probably, two to three minutes. She stayed in what was called a controlled coma for the better part of a week,” Willis said.
Willis described what a terrible time it was for his daughters and himself when they asked him to leave the room.
“They made me leave the room and that is the hardest thing. When they closed the door I did not know if I would ever see Linda again this side of heaven,” Willis said.
But with all this on his mind as he was making another trip to the emergency room one year later Willis talked more. They made a decision to go into Texarkana.
“We got there at straight up 12 o’clock on Thanksgiving Day and they did some brief tests and said I may have had some sort of heart event,” Willis said. Willis said he never experienced any pain.
He was then admitted to the hospital for testing the entire day the day after Thanksgiving. He went through stress tests and an MRI and x-rays and seemed to be passing, according to Willis.
“I did so well on those tests and I felt like if I passed the stress test, the treadmill, that I did not have a heart problem. It is not in our family history to have heart problems,” Willis said.
He said as he walked the treadmill they kept increasing speed.
“I was doing great. So when I got back to the room I was euphoric,” he said.
He said he was very surprised that they kept him in the hospital for more testing, but he later found out he would be having a catherization and dye test.
“The physician came in and told me they had reserved an operating room just as a precaution,” he said. “My next memory was waking up in cardiac ICU. I remember telling my daughter Dawn, there would be angels in the intensive care unit and there was.”
He recalled physical angels, he called one Liz and the other was a nurse known by the name Rooster. He said he was also aware of the presence of spiritual angels, but went on to describe his nurse.
“I would see Liz and she had a long flowing nurses gown and anytime I saw her pass by the door that gave me a lot of security knowing she was in the vicinity,” he said.
Complications resulted, one after another, causing Willis to be in surgery for over 10 and a half hours for a three to four hour procedure.
“I had trouble as well; the reason I was in ICU so long was they had punctured a lung in surgery. That kept me in ICU longer. None of this was pain free. They have you heavily sedated, but you definitely know it is a place you don’t want to go back,” Willis said.
He said there was a group of people from his church at the hospital with his family.
“They kept reporting to Linda they were having problems. They had a very long day,” he said.
Willis remembers last Christmas they did not even put up a Christmas tree.
“I do not remember that much about last Christmas. We had the exchange of gifts, but Linda was so exhausted from everything we did not put up a tree. It was good to be home. I couldn’t do a whole lot. My assignment then was to walk five minutes a day,” he said.
Willis made a full recovery and was determined to live a healthier lifestyle. He has lost 50 pounds.
He won’t visit the doctor again for his heart until May, 2010. He said he and his wife committed to a healthier diet and exercise. He has also started, along with his pastor Mark Fischer, a men’s walking and prayer group at the Christian Life Center for First Baptist Church on Tuesday mornings at 6 a.m.
“This is preventable if you pay attention,” he said.
The Turkey Trot has about 40,000 participants and Bob Willis was happy to be walking in the 5K event this year rather than being in the hospital.
“Thanksgiving was amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed Thanksgiving. I am really trying to enjoy the holidays twice as much this year,” he said. “We are really just enjoying life, feeling very, very blessed. God left us here for a reason.”
