It seemed rather benign to me; a rather small pain in the left side of my chest that radiated up to my left shoulder and down my arm. It wasn’t debilitating, but it was annoying.  So, after two days and a great deal of urging from family and friends I called my Doctor.  “You need to go directly to the hospital,” the receptionist told me.  

“No, I’m sure it’s really not that serious,” I assured her.  “I just need an appointment to see Sommer.”

“I’m really not allowed to even make an appointment for something like this.  You really need to go directly to the hospital.”

“Come on , Emmy, just get me in to see Doc.”

She finally relented and, against her better judgment, scheduled me an appointment for later that day.

When my Doctor came in to examine me, she asked, “Why, are you here and not at the hospital?”

“I’m sure it’s nothing.  I probably just pulled something.  I’ve been working on a covered deck at the house.”

“Mayor, (they all call me Mayor. It amuses them.) we don’t even deal with anything like that here.  It’s nothing to mess around with.  You need to go to the hospital immediately!”

I agreed and, still convinced there was nothing seriously wrong with me, rather sheepishly drove myself to the hospital.

I was barely able to finish telling the emergency room attendant why I was there when a nurse came out and called me in.  Two nurses rushed me into a small room, started pulling off various articles of my clothing and attaching sticky electrical leads to my chest and legs.

A half an hour later, as I expected, they told me I wasn’t having a heart attack and my circulation and EKG looked good.

“Thanks ladies, I’ll be expecting your bill.”

The next day my Doctor’s office called.  “We’ve referred you to a Cardiologist.  Call and make an appointment.”  Oh, come on, I thought, how many insurance co-pays am I going to have to make this week?

The Cardiologist scheduled a stress test.  A stress test is a process which takes several hours.  While it isn’t painful or intrusive it is tedious. It was performed by what seemed like a small army of attractive female nurses and technicians.  When the whole thing was over and the Dr. finally saw me I told him that I was beginning to think of him as the Wizard of Oz; it was rumored that he existed but I never really thought I’d ever actually see him.

He was not amused. In fact, it didn’t seem the Cardiologist had much of a sense of humor at all.  While my best attempts at charm and wit had gone over rather well with the pretty women in the office, he, on the other hand, was completely immune.

“We’re going to bring a wheel chair, take you over and check you into the hospital.”  (The Cardiologist’s office is across the street from the hospital and there’s a covered bridge from his building to the second floor of the hospital.)

While I was totally stunned at this point I was able to keep my bearings and told him that no he wasn’t.  I had come to his office from work and I needed a shower and to change clothes and to take a breath.  He advised me that this was a very bad idea; that in my current condition I might not make it back to the hospital.  He believed that my driving was rather  dangerous.

I insisted that I was in fact going home and would be back to the hospital within a couple of hours.  As he and one of his nurses followed me to the door, trying to convince me not to go, I walked out.

I was stunned, the truth be told I still am.  I am very fit.  I have muscles.  I have endurance.  How can this be happening to me?  I would die in a car crash or get run over by a train or in a fire fight with terrorists. I would not die from heart issues.

The next morning they came and shaved my legs and nether regions and performed an angiogram.  This is a procedure where they open an artery in your leg and send a tiny camera up into your heart, yikes. The results of the test showed one completely blocked artery and another ninety percent blocked.  This was Friday and my surgery was scheduled for the following Monday.

Yeah, so here I am six weeks after double bypass surgery with a large scar on my chest where they cut through flesh and bone to expose my heart.  The left side of my chest is still rather sore where they peeled back the pectoral muscle and borrowed a vein to bypass one in my heart.  I am anxious and annoyed.  I want to get back to the things I could do before.  I want to finish my covered deck.  I need to go back to work.

There is no moral to this story.  There is no dramatic ending.  This post starts out kinda slow and then just peters out.  I think I wrote it more for me than for any  of you.  Perhaps, the writing will mellow the surrealism of the whole experience.  I don’t know, but thanks for reading.