My Achy Breaky Heart: Part I

Okay, it wasn't my heart, but I think that the reference is close enough. Everyone has events in their life which are extremely significant and leave an impact on them. Hopefully, they are joyous things like the graduation, promotions, and the birth of children. Sometimes, they are sad things like the passing of a friend or relative or other personal losses. One of my significant events just happened to me back in May.

 

It was Mother's Day, May 15th, at about 9:30 p.m. I was talking on the phone with my mother when I experienceda sudden sharp pain that felt like someone had stabbed me through the roof of my mouth and my jaw locked up. The pain actually brought me to my knees and I had to abruptly end the phone call with my mother. I hoped that it was just some sort of weird spasm and would pass momentarily. After a few minutes, I realized that this pain was not going away and was not likely to pass in the next few minutes.

 

Immediately, I started running the possibilities through my mind. Stroke? Heart attack? I didn't really know. Several years back my mother had a minor stroke due to a spike in her blood pressure. For good measure, I decided to check mine. It was elevated, but not alarmingly so and for being in some distress it was not a suprise it was elevated. I also checked my blood sugar, thinking I was having some sort of weird diabetic reaction. It was reassuringly normal 96.

 

I remembered that in the previous month's issue of Men's Health magazine there was an article with a flow chart of heart attack symptoms. I thought I should check it out. I never did find the article for two reasons. One, the words on the page made very little sense to me and two the faces of the people in the magazine were distorted. Every single person in the magazine had a face that was warped and unrecognizeable to me. I knew that something was wrong far beyond the ordinary.

 

At the time, I was going through a divorce and my ex-wife and I still lived in the same house. She took me to the emergency room. As I sat at the admissions desk, the only thing I truly remember now is having great difficulty signing my name. After that point in time, everything that occurred for several hours, is either a blur or has been relayed to me. Apparently, I repeatedly told the nurses that my hands were cold and numb. Apparently, the next several hourse involved a lot of vomitting. I guess I should feel fortunate that I don't remember most of that.

 

Several hours later, I do remember coming out of a stupor and remember throwing up the last few times just as I had been given a potassium pill because my potassium levels were low. The doctors had not yet come up with a diagnosis for me. Several tests, including a stress test were planned for later. As I began to feel better, I started to feel really stupid for overreacting and wasting a whole lot of money on medical bills.

 

At some point in time, The cardiologist visited me and had great difficulty detecting a pulse in my right arm. He ordered a CT scan. I had the scan and went back to my room to wait. The stress test was still scheduled.

 

After a while, the cardiologist came back into the room, walked over to the televsion and turned it off. I knew that was not a good sign. He informed me that I had a dissected aorta and needed immediate surgery. I didn't panic, but that is the most scared I have ever been in my life. Not only had I never had surgery before, but I was facing surgery that was necessary to save my life. My only two references for aortic dissections were the actor John Ritter and the writer of Rent, Jonathan Larson. Unfortunately, both had died from an aortic dissection. I was terrified, wondering if these were going to be my last concious moments. I didn't have any playback of my life or regrets over things I hadn't done. My biggest concerns were that I wasn't going to get a chance to talk to my children before surgery and tell them how much I loved them, just in case, and that not making it through the surgery was just not an acceptable option. It was not going to happen if I had anything to say about it.