Everybody wants to know what it feels like to have a heart attack. My dad died 40 years ago of a heart attack so we can’t ask him. True to form my heart attack came along about the same age as his, according to genetic predisposition and bad eating habits. They saw it coming and took preventative measures, so instead of a sudden myocardial infarction, the onset was slow and there was time to get to the hospital. Though mine was considered a “serious” heart attack, damage to the organ was limited, but five by-passes were necessary. I’ve heard of six-way by-pass surgery, but five is enough.

The disheartening part is that three weeks previously I went to the hospital at 10 p.m., with two fire trucks and an ambulance so the whole neighborhood knew, and after two days observation, I was declared heart healthy, and sent home. None of the tests showed anything wrong, and that turned out to be the problem, the arteries around the heart were all clogged, so there was nothing to contrast on the X-ray with a clear artery. We were told this happens in about three percent of the cases, but the experience served to lower my expectations of the medical community’s ability to accurately diagnose these conditions.

I stayed home from work that morning for other reasons and was driving down a heavily traveled street in the neighborhood, when I felt a crushing sensation in my chest, without great pain, and things started moving around in weird directions. I pulled the car over to the side of he road, regained what was left of my wits, and slowly drove back home. By the time I reached the house I was stone cold, so headed for a warm bath, which helped a little, but my daughter was home and called an ambulance anyway.

The EMT was very patient with me when I told him it couldn’t be a heart attack, I had after all, been declared “heart healthy” only a couple of weeks earlier, and things can’t change that fast. He just kept popping baby aspirin tablets in my mouth, and telling me that all the signs pointed to a heart problem.

Wrong again, so we tore off through the neighborhood, sirens wailing and everybody staring. I hadn’t received that much attention since I wrapped myself around a pick-up trucks’ push bumper when I was a teenager. That one almost killed me too, but like this time, it provided instant if temporary notoriety.