(With apologies to Bonnie Tyler…)
Funny thing happened as I was half-way through my dinner a week ago Tuesday.
"Why am I so full all of a sudden?" (I swear I couldn't take another bite.)
"Why is it hard to breathe? And why does my chest feel so heavy?"
I call to Camille, who's in the kitchen cleaning up, and say, "I think we have a 'situation'." I tell her what's up and suggest she drive me to the ER. She immediately dismisses the idea and calls 911.
As usual, she's smarter than me, especially in situations like this.
A team of Orchard Park EMTs arrive, surround me as I sit on the couch, and do an EKG. The lead guy looks at the printout and says, as if this were routine, "Yeah, you're having a heart attack."
Now I have to back the story up a bit.
The previous Sunday night, as I'm getting ready for bed, I feel some soreness across the top of my chest. Pain from shoulder to shoulder that I've not experienced before. It worries me enough that we go to the nearby Mercy Immediate Care, where they do a thorough exam—EKG, Cat Scan, blood work—and rule out a heart attack. A nurse asks if I've done any weightlifting recently, and I say yes, two days before, a lot of upper body work. She claims that it's not unusual for soreness like this to be delayed. They give me an intravenous dose of Motrin and I feel better. I accept her theory (which turns out to be wrong) and we head home around 4 AM to get some sleep.
The next two days I go about my business. There is still some soreness in that area, especially notable when I take a deep breath or lay on my side in bed, but nothing to worry about, I assume. Just a muscle pull.
I even spent four hours Tuesday morning doing a USGA golf course rating (walking around taking measurements), but then declined to play the course in the afternoon as we would usually do. I still feel okay, but don't want to aggravate the "muscle" soreness in my chest.
And then came dinner that night.
The EMTs loaded me into an ambulance and we sped off to South Buffalo Mercy, siren blaring. They rolled me into a big room, where I'm surrounded by hospital staff. Within 30 minutes or so I'm in an operating room being prepped for an angiogram to see what's going on inside my chest.
As things proceed, half-dazed from the sedative, I hear the doctor say something to a nurse. I turn and ask the doc, "Did I just hear the word S-T-E-N-T?"
"Yes you did," she says, "I'm putting a stent in. Your main coronary artery is 90% blocked."
"Well, that's interesting," I say, and doze off.
Long story short, I spend the night in Mercy and, after an echo cardiogram that showed no damage to the heart, I'm released the next afternoon. I learn that the incident Sunday night was, indeed, a precursor to this heart attack.
Still, I'm feeling good (relieved) now, and go home with a passel of new meds to add to the two dozen I already take daily to protect my eight year-old lung transplant.
The next two days seem fairly ordinary. I'm in no pain, but am having trouble adjusting to a new blood thinner that causes breathlessness. A call to the cardiology nurse results in a change to a new med, and things settle down again. I begin to feel so normal that I toy with the idea of keeping a previously scheduled golf date for Friday. When she hears this, Camille rolls her eyes. Her expression says she can't believe I'm serious.
But I am.
To be safe (and to, hopefully, assuage Camille's doubts) I check in with my primary, who says as long as I'm not walking the course (haven't done that for the last 10+ years), I should be fine.
The next day I arrive at the course, and it's a beautiful, cool fall morning. I and three good friends head out to play. Although I do feel a slight wooziness from the new blood thinner, it quickly disappears as we move along in the bright sunshine. I play pretty well, taking a mere 13 putts on the front nine. Alas, things turn sour on the back nine, and I take 20 putts there, but still manage to finish with a 94, a decent score for me on a fairly difficult course. I come home, no worse for wear, and fix dinner.
As of today I'm still adjusting to the new meds, but otherwise all is well.
And so, there you have it, my "heartfelt" tale.
But wait. Shouldn't there be a moral to the story? Something to learn from the craziness of the past ten days?
Well, how about, "Hey, it's not good enough to play well on the front nine, you gotta keep your focus and finish the job!"
Seriously though, the lessons to take away from this episode are clear:
1) Pay attention to your body—listen when it's trying to tell you something.
2) Better yet, listen to your spouse! You must've realized by now that they know you better than you know yourself!