I’ve heard it said that the person who loves you most is the first person to visit you in the hospital.
There was a time when I was driving on the freeway. I experienced what I thought was a heart attack. I know all the objective symptoms.
- Horrible pain and pressure in the chest.
- Radiating pain in my left shoulder and down my arm.
- Sweating (going into shock)
I took the Lakeview off ramp and checked myself in at the emergency room at the hospital there.
They drew blood. The enzymes there let them know whether it’s a heart attack or something else. I lay on the bed and made a couple telephone calls. One was to my best friend at work and the other was to my wife. Both were busy and asked to be kept apprised. Nobody showed up.
It turned out not to be a heart attack. The closest the medical people came was a muscle spasm of some magnitude. I was under a lot of pressure at work – a lot of stress. They put me on the treadmill and I ran for twelve minutes without huffing or puffing. The nurse said, “If you had cardiovascular disease you couldn’t do that.”
It’s been about four years since that day. And still I think on it not out of vindictiveness for those who didn’t come, but more because nobody came when I thought I was close to shuffling off this moral coil.
