Excerpt from the book:

It was November 18, 1993, and dinner was delicious. It was Barry’s birthday, and our friend Nino had come to our home in Lafayette, Colorado, to cook with me. Nino’s a great cook and the afternoon passed swiftly as we prepared our favorite dishes. I cooked Indian food; he cooked Mexican. What a feast.
Later that night I started wheezing, which was unusual for me. Within moments I could barely breathe. Barry called the doctor and we were told to go immediately to the emergency room. Sara, our daughter, was only five years old at the time and already asleep. Luckily, our neighbor was willing to watch her while we rushed to the nearest hospital. Barry stayed with me in the emergency room until I was transferred by ambulance to University Hospital in Denver. Then he went home to be with Sara. I was scared, lying in that hospital room, not knowing what was happening to me.
I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure (CHF), a condition in which the heart fails to pump blood with normal efficiency, affecting the other organs. My lungs, unable to function normally for lack of blood flow, filled with fluid, a condition known medically as pulmonary edema. The salty dinner seemed to have been the reason for the fluid retention that evening; but the underlying cause, as we were soon to find out, was more serious.
After the drama and fear of the previous evening, just waking up and being alive was ecstasy. When Barry came the next morning we were both struck that, instead of being scared and upset, we felt a measure of grace and peace, which was both inexplicable and undeniable. Of course, grace and peace were not all that we were to feel.