The Attack
Saturday, July 11th, 9:20 pm: I'd just finished playing basketball for a couple of hours at the stake center. No problems, other than the fact I couldn't hit a three-pointer to save my life (good thing that turned out not to be a requirement.) I stuck around for a few minutes, shooting and talking to a couple of the guys while I cooled off.
About halfway home, I started feeling a bit of pressure in my chest that was making it hard to breathe, and I started sweating again. I pulled over, and after half a minute the feeling passed. Whoa, that was weird, what the heck was that? As I pulled into my garage five minutes later the pressure and shortness of breath returned, and by the time I got in the house the cold sweats had started again. There's definitely something going on here that's not normal. At this point everything was starting to feel a bit surreal. There was no panic, just a growing sense of, I don't know, weirdness. (Right now somebody's saying, "I thought you said you didn't feel like you normally do." Very funny. Quit interrupting.) I thought, in a very detached, conversational way, I wonder if this is a heart attack; then, as I closed my front door, Leave it unlocked in case the EMTs need to get in.
I really considered waiting to see if it would pass, as the episode in the car had. But if this turns out to be a heart problem, that's not a risk that's worth taking. So I picked up my cordless phone and dialed 911. As I chatted with the emergency dispatcher, I laid down on the floor, put the handset on speaker, and set it next to my head. I tried to relax my chest so I could take deeper breaths. The dispatcher got the ambulance on its way, then asked if there was somebody she could call to come lend some assistance. I had her call Jeremy, who is my cousin-in-law, closest friend and co-worker. She called him, then came back on the line with me and kept me talking.
The talking thing was getting more and more difficult. I never did feel the proverbial elephant standing on my chest, but the pressure I did feel was making it harder and harder to breathe. I felt like the dispatcher was asking me a lot of essay questions when I only had enough air to give yes/no answers.
Jer actually beat the ambulance there. He came in the door, and I had him go out to flag down the ambulance. This is the point where my memory starts to fade. (That's good news for you, because this story's already getting pretty long, and the less I remember, the less you have to read.)
The paramedics... wait, I can't call them that, there were more than two of them... the EMTs asked me more questions while they got me prepped and loaded onto a gurney. I don't remember the questions or my answers, but I think I got most of them right (I test well.) Then, into the ambulance for a quick ride to Heber City. Ironically, that's where I got my last speeding ticket; the ambulance lights and siren sure would have come in handy that day.
Apparently I went into full arrest just as we were turning down the lane to the hospital, so they had to start CPR, and then cranked up their power tools. While they were doing that, I was having a really bizarre out-of-body experience. Rather than seeing them working on my body, I saw the electro-shock therapy scene from Strange Brew:
"Take it up to thirty this time!"
"No way, eh, it's my turn!"
"Okay. Hey, let's try the head this time. (In a mock reprimanding tone) See, if you'd stick to your 12-point maintenance program, eh, we wouldn't have to jumpstart you like this."
I wanted to watch more of the movie, but they got my heart going again, and I got sucked back into my body (that's okay, I have the movie on DVD.) The doctors later told me that the EMTs did a perfect job with both the CPR and the defibrillator, for which I'm very appreciative.
The ER and Cardiac ICU
I don't remember much about the ER, but from what Jer has told me, I repeatedly wished him a happy birthday (it was on Sunday), and repeatedly told a few Steven Wright jokes which applied to the situation (there's at least one which applies to any situation.)
There are two things about this whole experience that have kinda freaked me out. The first one happened in the ER and prompted one of the Steven Wright quotes (remind me to tell you the second one a little later.) Jer said he hoped I wasn't too attached to the shirt I'd been wearing, because they had to cut it off of me. Why does that freak me out? Because earlier this year I had a dream, and in that dream something serious was going on; but the only part of the dream I could specifically remember when I woke up was that Jer had said that exact thing to me. I'm dead serious about this (okay, briefly-dead serious).
So I was having really strong deja vu, and apparently kept forgetting that I'd already mentioned it. That led to the first Steven Wright joke: "Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time." (Told you there was one for any situation!)
They decided to LifeFlight me over the mountain to IMC in Salt Lake. Jer said he'd meet me down there, to which I reportedly replied, "Wouldn't it be cheaper for all of us to ride down together?" I only remember a few seconds of the helicopter ride, looking out the window and not being able to see anything.
All I remember of the rest of that night and Sunday morning is being poked and prodded, and being asked the same questions I'd already been asked several times (and yet I was the one who supposedly had the short-term memory loss.) That's just fine, though, because one of the questions they asked gave me the perfect setup to apply another Steven Wright quote:
I filled out an application that said, "In Case Of Emergency Notify..." I wrote "Doctor"; what's my mother going to do?
Sunday morning the cardiac team ran a catheter in through my leg up to my heart. I was expecting them to use some complex medical imaging to guide the catheter, so I was surprised when I looked over at the surgeon's monitor and saw that he was using Google Maps!
They did an angiogram to get a look at the coronary arteries. That involved injecting a dye through the catheter that made me glow in the dark, and hopefully gave me some kind of cool superhero abilities. Then they did an angioplasty, where they inflate a little balloon at the point of the blockage to open it up. Finally, they placed a stent in the artery at that same point. The stent is a bare-metal framework to support and hold open the artery wall.
More to come in Part 2. If you want to make this long story short, you can just read the Summary; I won't hold it against you. Well, maybe a little. But I'd probably never know. Unless the next time I talk with you, I ask you a question that only somebody who'd read Part 2 would be able to answer.
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