I take a bath, shave my legs, braid my hair.
I put on the soft white nightgown with the pink rosebuds.
I take more pain pills so I can stand the wait.

I try to tell my husband when he comes home.
But he has more important things to do,
Than listen to brittle old words from tired hearts.

I’m quiet all day and quiet all night.
I try not to disturb what must be kept to the end,
Because there is no sense or beauty, just the pain.

At last I can lie down and sleep,
and I feel the great accomplishment
Of laying down the day on the altar of codeine.

I think I’ve won another day of life that disturbed
no one. It was the victory allowed to me.
Tonight, I seek the victory of speaking.

I awoke and felt for the pain and it was hidden.
I felt relief that I had triumphed over it.
Then it began to spiral up from my heart.

Pain was pale smoke from the fire of my dreaming heart.
My fiery heart grew stronger with the pain and I wondered
if I had misjudged the endurance of pain.

It grew, the pain grew inside me until I felt it radiate
up and out from that small place inside.
Its tentacles wrapped around me and I called.

I rocked and prayed to let me make it through this,
one night that disturbed no one. But I called.
I’m no longer alone. Now there’s a frightened man.

I hear the sound of the engine I’ve heard before.
My house is filled with men, big strong men, young men,
All busy talking and planning and solemn.

Enter the woman. She’s pretty and mid-thirties,
with the blackest dyed hair and slim fitting uniform,
She will be my savior and pierce my dreams.

She sends her practiced probe from her eyes into mine.
The probe and my heart of pain connect.
She’s so good at projecting her will to me.

When she’s connected to me, the strong young solemn men
place a stretcher at the end of my bed, and she says,
“Can you scoot to the end of the bed for me?”

No, my pretty darling, I’m paralyzed by pain, but,
I say that I can, so, with strong young arms
to pull me, I’m scooted to the bed’s end.

They raise me to my feet and help me turn so my butt
reaches the side of the waiting bed. They cover my legs
with a hot blanket and wrap me with more.

They pull up the rails and I sit so still as they turn me, like
the seated chief of a great ceremony, toward the door.
Ah, the cool night air reaches my lungs, relief.

They bid me hug myself and we bump into the night,
toward the rumbling, lighted behemoth where they will
Perform the ritual, the ceremony.

Strong, young, careful arms jolt me mercilessly into
the hollow womb of the rumbling beast.
The priestess sits, places my hand on her thigh.

A woman with a thigh smaller than my own. Inside I smile.
I close my eyes. One mustn’t watch such pain as it grows.
My hand and her black twill thigh are connected.

She hands me more baby aspirin. I chew and try to
contain my pain. It fights me to escape.
She speaks, my eyes open, see the vial, tongue squirt.

I see the huge back window, but it’s blank with the night.
Later my husband says he stood outside the blank window
waving at me, but I saw only black night.

She offers me morphine, I must say I’m allergic. She consults,
puts Demerol in my IV, but I need morphine.
I hug the pain closer, my heads moves, says, “No.”

Hospital, movement, stressed people who mean to save me.
Head saying, “No.” Hugging hard, waves of heat, hands,
“She’s clammy.” “Get her in a gown.” “Do you need to vomit?”

Eyes open in panic, vomit on the floor. Gown. Vomit bag.
Will the heaving never end?
“You had Italian for dinner, didn’t you?”

Rolling to the OR. “Just a bump to put you on the table.”
“Hi, I’m Dr Ishi—-, I’m going to make this stop for you. Okay?”
“Mm, yes, stop.” Head says no. Hug hard. Open eyes.

OMG! He’s so cute! He’s twelve years old! Cute baby boy. Cute, baby boy doc.

Feel the razor shaving me.

“That was pain meds in your IV. Feel okay?”

Oh god, the pain in my groin.

“She’s in pain, more meds.”

Oh god, the pain moves.

Mmm.

Oh god.

“More meds.”

Mmmmmm.

“Hey, I got it stopped! How do you feel?”

Mmmm, what’s on his head?

Great god almighty, that’s a baseball cap under his gauzy surgical cap!

He’s high as a kite with pride in his accomplishment.

Cute, cute, cute.

Showing me a picture. Uh, oh, That doesn’t look right.

“I got your heart attack stopped, But this — right here — we’re going to have to do open heart because I could only do one stent. I squeezed that one with the balloon, but this has to be bypassed around.”

“When?”

“We’ll have to watch you and see. Maybe we can wait a month. Just depends how you do.”

“Holy shit! That’s an artery?”

“Yeah, but see the stent on the other one? It was hard, but I did it!”

He is so excited. How cute!

“Fentanyl and Versed. No, now!

Don’t you worry, we’re going to give you pain meds. You aren’t going to hurt at all. It’s going to be okay. No pain. I promise.”

He’s reassuring me about future pain. He’s so sweet.

“Thank you so much…doctor…for stopping..you know…my heart…what you did…thank you.”

“You just relax and we’ll take care of you.”

Thus ends my third heart attack. Four days later I lied my way out of the hospital by saying I had no chest pain, no shortness of breath and I was walking just fine.

It probably sounds crazy, but sometimes you just need your own bed, your own pillows, your own “april fresh” nighties, your own shower, your own toothpaste, and (my nurse understood this) your own organic food that doesn’t taste so nasty with bizarre chemical tastes that you can’t gag it down. “How the hell are people supposed to heal when they’re being fed food covered with poisonous, chemical pesticides?” Yep, my nurse had the same question.

And, just so you know, your heart never gets so old and tired that it isn’t soothed by a cute Dr Ishi-whatsit bouncing with joy because he stopped your heart attack.

A baseball cap, cocked at an angle, under a surgical cap. The world is a better, brighter, more giggly, place for “prima donna’ cardiologists.