The BEAT goes on. Do your part with a giving HEART. (Glen Anderson)

Dearest friends, family, and strangers,

On October 6, 2016, Glen was working with his road construction crew when he did, as he had done countless times in his life, stopped to help someone, when his heart stopped; he went into sudden cardiac arrest. Thankfully, an angel appeared, a Washington County detective happened to be driving by at that exact moment when she recognized what was happening and stopped to administer CPR. She was able to revive him and call for an ambulance, but his heart stopped, again. Between PD, EMS, and the amazing cardiologists at the University of Minnesota they were able to get him back a second time. I truly believe that this can only mean that it is not his time to go; he is meant to be here.

He was placed on life support. He was on a ventilator; he had a machine breathing for him as he wasn't able do it on his own. He was on ECMO; ECMO is the use of an artificial heart located outside the body that puts oxygen into the blood and then carries this blood to the body tissues. In essence, his heart was put on "bed rest" and he had a machine pumping blood for him.

He has made incredible progress, but not without overcoming incredible hurdles. His journey has been a series of "one step forward, two steps back." First, he had bleeding in his belly; they were able to cauterize the bleed after nearly 4 hours in surgery. Then, his heart was beating at an irregular rate and rhythm so they placed a pacemaker. He made the most out of his new hardware; it was working a lot as they still couldn't get his heart rate or rhythm under control. Imagine sticking your finger in an electrical socket and getting zapped. Now imagine doing that for minutes on end. Incredibly uncomfortable, right? That is what it is like to feel a pacemaker go off and that is what he endured for over a week. He suffered from pneumonia, gallstones, extensive muscle atrophy, and kidney failure.

Although, he has had many setbacks; he has kept fighting. He has been so resilient (that Anderson stubbornness, I guess). His doctors say that most patients that come in after suffering sudden cardiac arrest don’t recovery as quickly as he has; in fact, they usually don’t make it at all. We are all so thankful and so blessed that he is expected to make a full recovery, but that is not without its many costs, both physical and financial. He has had so many setbacks already, that we don’t want medical bills to be one of them; we want him to be able to focus on recuperating. This giving campaign is in support of someone we love and would do anything for us so let’s do something for him