Being empty nesters (our youngest, Parker, was a delta chi pledge 240 miles away at the University of Alabama), Barbara wasn’t crazy about me being gone and leaving her home alone. So we communicated through the night via texting. Keep the lights on, close the garage, I’ll use my remote to get in. Good night.
Thursday morning came. I probably slept in. The only thing on my calendar, written later, are the words heart attack! After a Sunday thru Wednesday road trip, I needed an office day. Friday’s calendar was packed with appointments, contract signings, business deals and a baptism that evening for a friend’s new baby boy. I retired from being a United Methodist Pastor 10 years before, but I occasionally officiated a wedding, funeral or baptism.
But why am I talking about Friday. I don’t even remember Friday. I just know the contracts didn’t get signed and the baby didn’t get baptized.
Thursday was a good day. Slept in…I think. Did my work. That evening, Barb and I went out to meet friends for food and fellowship. In the car, I handed her a list of my prescriptions and told her if I had a heart attack to take me straight to Atlanta's St. Joseph’s hospital. In other words, drive past the closer hospitals and get me to the one known for their heart program. I’m sure she thought I was crazy, but somehow I knew it was coming.
That night, about 11:30 pm, I awoke with chest pains. I crept out of bed, went downstairs to the kitchen and crunched an aspirin. Then I waited. No help, so I did another. Still no help, so I did one more.
I was walking back to the stairs to go back to bed when I realized this is bad, really bad. I sat down on the bottom step and took stock of the situation. I called out to Barbara to take me to the hospital. She came to the top of the stairs from the bedroom. “I’m having a heart attack. I need to go to the hospital”. She understood.
People ask me what a heart attack feels like. There are different symptoms. Shortness of breath, sweating, nausea, pain in the chest, arms, jaw or neck are some of the typical symptoms. On this occasion I would describe it as “an elephant standing on my chest”. I later learned this is a well used phrase among the heart afflicted.
I knew this wasn’t indigestion. I also knew I didn’t have long. The kind of heart attack I was experiencing is called the “widow maker”. It is a complete blockage of the LAD (left anterior descending) artery which takes oxygen rich blood to the front of the heart. One doctor told me you usually have about five minutes to get help when this happens. I would say the crushed aspirin probably stretched my time limit to 10 minutes, because that’s how long it took to leave this world.
Barbara did a great job calling 911. I had previously asked her to drive me to the hospital instead of calling 911, but she is smarter than me and wisely called for help. She came down the stairs with a pair of jeans in hand. Do you know how difficult it is to find a pair of jeans that fits just right. Well I had finally found a pair I liked. Within a few minutes the emergency room staff would be frantically cutting the jeans off of me never to be seen again.
By this time I was sitting in a living room chair with my legs sprawled out in front, Barbara trying to dress me.
She went to call 911 again. “They are on the way”, she reported. And then they came. I wasn’t sure they would take me seriously so I said, “I’m having a heart attack”.
Since they didn’t answer right away, I then asked quietly, “I am having a heart attack aren’t I”?
I reported on my aspirin consumption. They took my blood pressure, did some other things then put me on a stretcher and loaded me into an ambulance. The EMT, a kind and competent fellow, placed a sublingual nitroglycerin tablet under my tongue. But I was gone.
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