“The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated”.
My close friend and cartoonist, Dave Bamberg, captures the essence of that quote in the accompanying cartoon. While I did, in fact, have a heart attack, in the simplest of terms, my whatchamacallit got all out of whack and discombobulated. It’s a good thing they have those thingamabobs to fix my doohickey. Right now, my doohickey is doing just fine, thank you.
But, on the serious side, I find myself compelled to be true to one of my core beliefs; “knowledge not shared is energy wasted”, by sharing what really happened and the lessons learned, in case someone can be helped from my experience. My formal training has been in engineering and finance. I went to pre-engineering high school in Brooklyn, followed by a college degree in mechanical engineering. I never took Biology, or anatomy, and never ever dissected a frog. This human physiology is all new to me. But, on to what happened:
The first lesson I learned, is that there really are guardian angels. Had I not been deterred from taking three wrong turns, I would not be here. On Thursday, August 27th, I had just finished a business presentation to a breakfast group in Cypress, TX. I had my first choice to take Hwy 290 into town to return the presentation easel I had borrowed from my office conference room.
Then I thought, “It’s only 9:30 AM and traffic will be heavy so instead I’ll stop off at Costco to give the manager copies of the business cards from the Networking Breakfast which they hosted earlier in the week. Arriving at Costco at 9:50 AM, brought me to my second choice, “Costco doesn’t open for another ten minutes and I don’t want to wait around in the heat, so I get some gas to pass the time.” Then I came to my third choice, “My gas gauge is at three quarters of a tank, so why waste time topping off the tank, I’ll go over to Sue’s office and harass her for a few minutes”. That was the exact mental process I went through to decide what to do. My actions were being guided, because if I had taken any of the first three choices, I may not be in a position to share this experience.
Once at Sue’s office, I began to have a burning sensation at the base of my throat, like the worst case of acid reflux I had ever had. Added to this was the worst case of the sweats, with sweat pouring off my head and face. I popped 6 Tums to no avail. I washed my face with cold water and lay down on a couch in the office, but the feeling only got worse. Finally, I went into Sue’s office and told her to get off the phone, “We are going to the hospital.” Sue looked at my pale face and said, “Are you having a heart attack?” I replied, “I don’t know what I am having, but I don’t like it and it isn’t getting any better”. Thank goodness Methodist Hospital, Willowbrook was only 5 minutes away.
Sue dropped me at the Emergency Room entrance and I walked right up to the receptionist, leaned over her desk, beads of sweat dripping onto her paperwork and announced, “I am having a heart attack”. This set into motion an amazing set of events. Within seconds, a nurse had me on a two-wheeled hand-truck and was running down a hallway shouting commands. I ended up in a room with three nurses telling me to take off my shirt and undershirt and got on the table. As quickly as one shaved an area on my chest, another stuck an electrode onto the cleared space and connected it to a monitor behind me.
Then two female technicians or nurses pulled off my shoes, then both my socks, and in one swoop, my pants. I asked if I could keep my underwear on and was surprised to learn what pros these ladies were. Before I knew it, I was handed a hospital gown to save what little modesty I may have still had. I joked with the crew that, “It’s been a long time since I had three ladies ripping my clothes off.” Later, Sue reminded me that I have never had one, let alone three women rip my clothes off.
I later learned that I was the recipient of the coordinated efforts of The Cath Team, short for catheter. The ER doctor tried an aspirin, then a nitroglycerin tablet, both to no avail. He said to me, “I think you are having a heart attack, and we are going to move fast”. I told him, “I have no underwear on so…you’re in charge.” Two members of The Cath Team began pushing my gurney down the corridors to The Cath Lab like it was a bobsled in the Olympics. We made what felt like two wheeled turns and wound up in the Lab where the team slid me from the gurney to the table and the cardiologist started working on me. NOTE: It was 10:45 AM, less than 30 minutes after I arrived at the ER.
Stay tuned to the next exciting chapter: Tales from the Cath Lab.
