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Serious As A Heart Attack!


“Life is hard.  After all, it kills you.” ~ Katharine Hepburn

Death at a Funeral
Some people think about death once in a blue moon, a fleeting thought that floats in and out of the recesses of their minds.  Some never think about it…really think about it.  I think about death in some form every single day of my life.  I think about when I’m going to die, how I’m going to die, will I be naked when I die?  I then I think, of course, I’ll be naked when I die.  I probably have an unusually thorough concept of my own mortality. 

I’ve been to so many funerals in my life, I’ve become somewhat of a funeral expert.  I’ve been to so many funerals that most of my wardrobe is black, just to be prepared.  I’ve been to so many funerals that they refer to me as pallbearer number three.  I can’t hear “the Old Rugged Cross” without tearing up, on cue. 

I’ve developed an anxiety disorder in reaction to death.  I went to a lawn and garden show with a friend of mine several years ago.  We got to the flower arrangement section, and there were all these big arrangements of beautiful flowers.  It was late May, getting ready for June bride festivities, and there were lilies, carnations, roses…all white.  When most see a big bunch of white flowers, they would think wedding…not me; I’m thinking funeral.  I started to have a panic attack.  I got short of breath, jumpy, light headed.  I freaked out and dove into the koi pond.  I can’t go back to the Nashville Convention Center because of that…and a couple of other things, too, but I won’t get into all that.

I come from an unconventional, dysfunctional family.  When I was little, and still now, people would ask me about my family, and I had my response down.  I was raised by my great grandparents, because my mother died when I was five, and I never really knew my father.  The first thing out of their mouth was, “great grandparents?”  Yes, great grandparents.  We pop ‘em out quick in the Eidson family.  In fact, the women in my family don’t bother getting married, so I come from three generations of Eidson women.  My mother’s maiden name IS my last name.  And so was her mother’s.  We don’t like change. 

Don’t Fear the Reaper
The first Wednesday of the month, I produced a show at the area comedy club.  The show was called “Girl On Girl Comedy and Revue”, and it featured female and gay comedians, burlesque acts, musicians, and pole dancers.  I had been doing this show for a couple of years now and was sitting in the green room, waiting for the show to begin.  All of a sudden, I felt very hot and achy.  It was June, and I had heard of several people acquiring summer colds.  I dismissed how I felt as me possibly coming down with one.  It felt like the flu.  As I finished my beer, the feeling passed, and I headed to the stage to start the show.  The show went on without a hitch.  Some of the other comedians and I even went out to a bar after the show and sang karaoke.  Everything seemed fine.

The next day, I felt like there was an elephant sitting on my chest.  If you have ever had bronchitis, it feels somewhat like that.  I was also coughing quite a bit.  Both of these symptoms supported my thought that it was a cold or bronchitis.  I had decided that if I felt like this the following day that I would go to the doctor.  On Friday, I felt fine, so I dismissed it.   By Saturday, it was back and to a stronger degree.  I was coughing so hard that I thought I may urinate myself.  I could not get comfortable.  Standing, lying down, or walking gave me no signs of relief.  Sunday, I was going downtown to do a tour, and I felt quite disoriented.  I felt drunk as I was walking down the sidewalk.

I had been taking medications to alleviate my symptoms.  For my cough, I was taking cough syrup.  I took Benadryl in case it was allergies.  I even took Xanax in case it was just my anxiety flaring up.  Nothing helped.  I thought that my disorientation and woozy feelings were a result of taking these medications.

At that time of year, we had a music festival going on downtown, and there was a medical tent set up.  I thought that I would stop in and ask them some questions.  My feeling was that if they expressed concerns, I would go to the emergency room after the tour was over.  Once I told the medics that I was experiencing chest tightness, they refused to let me leave the tent.  The old “I’ve got to go tell my boyfriend something real quick” didn’t work.  They would have been responsible if something happened after I left the tent, they explained.  So they put me in an ambulance.  They said they would be low key about it, as to not draw attention.  Unfortunately, there was a handful of little silver-haired ladies standing nearby, watching me be put on the gurney and into the ambulance.  I could just imagine by the looks on their faces that they must have thought I was drunk or hopped up on drugs or something.  They didn’t put the siren on, but they didn’t have to.  The extremely loud beeping sound of the ambulance backing up caught everyone’s attention!  “In case no one is looking, right over here!  Look at this person being hauled off.”  

In the ambulance, they hooked me up to an Electrocardiogram, or EKG, to take a look at my heart.  They said it looked normal, but gave me some aspirin to chew up and a nitroglycerin tablet.  I immediately felt better.  After they moved me into the emergency room, they hooked me up to another EKG.  They also took my blood.  They checked my blood pressure and said that it was a bit high, but said that they EKG looked okay.  The technician said, “You’re EKG looks good.  We’ll wait until your blood work comes back, but we’ll probably release you.”

By now, I am starving, so I’m planning where I’m going to go after I get out.  Should I get steak and a beer?  Maybe a little cheesecake for dessert?  When the other technician brought in my results, the first technician’s face changed.  “I did not see this coming,” he said.  “You’re enzymes are elevated.  You’ve had a heart event.”  Heart event?  What does that mean?  I asked if he meant that I had a heart attack.  He said, “A small one.”  A small one?  That’s like saying, “You’re kind of pregnant.”

He then went on to tell me that they would have to run some more tests.  I asked, “Okay, when do I need to come back for that?”  He said, “Oh, you’re not leaving.”  I was then admitted.  I was floored.  How could it be a heart attack?  I was only forty years old!  Only old people had heart attacks, I thought.

So I got settled into my room, not really sure what to expect.  The next day, they wheel me into the ultrasound room.  It was just me and the ultrasound technician.  He was a very meek, quiet fellow.  He was not much for chit-chat, so I tried to break the ice.  The only time that I had ever had an ultrasound is when I was pregnant.  While he was performing the test, I made the comment, “I think I see the head.”  I didn’t even get a smirk from him, and that was funny!  That is when I knew it was serious.

The next test they performed was an arteriogram.  During this procedure, the doctor inserts a catheter into an artery in your leg.  The nurse came in to shave me before the procedure.  What I thought would be my leg ended up being my groin.  As she was shaving me, I said, “I think I owe you dinner now.”  At least, she laughed.  After the catheter is inserted, they shoot a dye into your arteries to monitor the flow of blood.  This will allow them to see any blockages, as well as revealing any damage or narrowing of the arteries.  I will have to say that was the most action that I’d had in a while. 

Once that was finished, they wheeled me back into my room to wait for the doctor to review the findings.  A few hours later, the doctor entered.  He was a handsome, young surgeon, but super serious.  “He couldn’t possibly be old enough to know what he was talking about,” I thought to myself.  He introduced himself and began to make a crude drawing on the dry-erase board.  He drew a heart and pointed out where I had three blockages:  two were ninety-percent and one was eighty percent.  Everything that he said after that became very muffled, like Charlie Brown’s teacher in Peanuts.  He said that I would need to have surgery:  a triple bypass.  Again, I asked, “When do I need to come back for that?”  Oh, I wasn’t leaving.  Surgery was scheduled for Wednesday.  I didn’t even have time to worry.  I asked him how many times he had done this operation, and he retorted, “About two thousand times.”  At least, that had made me feel a tad better.

All that I could think about were all of the things that I had put off or had not done yet.  But at the same time, I felt helpless to worry.  What would worrying accomplish?  I would be lying if I said I was not nervous and scared.  I was petrified, but at the same time, oddly calm.  There was absolutely nothing that I could do about this situation.  I had to put all of my faith in this Indian Doogie Howser.  This man was clearly well-learned, well-trained, and well-prepared.  I had to put my faith in his abilities.  I didn’t have a choice.

(to be continued...)

My book,  The Heart of Happiness, is available on Amazon at:  https://amzn.to/2IZpXNP






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