Walking to the kitchen, the cold and darkness surround you as you let the dog out and coffee brewing, little do you know what’s about to hit at your computer, not 30 minutes later, a pain in your jaw has

you thinking “please don’t be this crown, not now”.

But then the pain is in your chest 30 minutes later and it’s getting harder to breathe. Panic engulfs you as you’ve never felt this and even though you are on the phone with the one you love you keep it quiet while you take a quick shower and as you get dressed - it’s hard to bend as your breath is getting shallower...”Holy SHIT!!” Is all you think.

Your stupid because you get in the car and start driving yourself to the hospital, half way their your panting like you ran a 10k and your jaw is throbbing. You feel your chest got heavier as you lean into the chair but you are still 15 minutes from the hospital as you drive on, sweating at

every stop light.

Your sister calls and you tell her, she says she’s on her way as you park the car and walk to the emergency door entrance. The nurses look at you and without saying anything to you, they call for a cart. They get your coat off and start taking your blood pressure - 199 over 99, pulse 106. You hear that and start thinking, “please don’t stroke out!” Hands are grabbing your shirt pulling it over your head.

IVs are put in as monitors are hooked up, “sir I need your last name and date of birth. Ok, this is morphine, an aspirin and a nitro patch, this is all protocol for your symptoms. A chest X-ray and blood draw are coming.” You see the nurses come and go, carts with x-ray machine comes in. “Last name, date of birth?”. You lift as the board goes behind your back. And then you hear the loud hum and the image comes on the screen, then the lady comes in to take your blood. “Last name? Date of birth? This will pinch just a bit.”

A half hour has past and the throbbing pain in your jaw is leaving and your chest is loosening up. But you still can’t take deep breaths as they check vitals again. “143 over 89, pulse 94.” You start easing a bit, as you realize you are not going to stroke or the fear of doing so eases.

Pain is a slow throb in your upper right chest over your pectoral muscle and you are wondering if you worked out too much but this doesn’t feel like it did before. What is this? And then your sister pops her head in, “Dude what the fuck?? You call your wife?”

that look on your face as you know you didn’t...

“No, call her or text her - send a picture. Hey remember you called me I didn’t call you I’m not going to get in trouble cause you got here first.”

”Dumb Ass! So what’s wrong you look pale!”

”Haven’t a clue! Pain in chest and hard to breath still”

A doctor appears, “Hello I’m Dr Ramirez, I’m the attending. We’ve looked at your results and find no signs of a cardiac event. Your ekg looks good, really strong but your blood pressure is very high and you are exhibiting Tachycardia, meaning your pulse is high. So we are trying to determine what the cause could be, since you are in no emanate danger, we are admitting you for overnight observation. Can you explain the events that bought you here?”

“What the fuck??!?” is all that goes through your head as you replay the events for the fourth time since you got here. As your wife gets there, it’s a fifth time. And as you finish they roll you to an observation room on the eighth floor. Nurses introduce themselves, with their assistants and start going over what to expect.

It’s been five hours since they gave you the morphine and the pain in your jaw is returning, the nurse comes in as states your heart looks good but your pulse and bp are high and irratic. She wants the cardiac resident to examin you first before administering more morphine.

A half hour later, the heart doctor comes in, “Sir, I’ve checked your test results and while your blood results don’t show a cardiac episode, I’d like to do an angiogram to rule out any cardiac issues. Once that’s ruled out we’ll refer to to a pulmonary attendant to review the case.” The nurse comes back in and says the order for the morphine came in.

Twenty one minutes later, just as your jaw feels normal again, two female technicians come in and begin informing you of what is going to happen in this angiogram as they start hooking patches up to you.

”Hold it,” you say, “can I go to the bathroom before this continues?”

”oh yes of course,“ one says and continues,” also come out with just your gown as we are going to have to shave you as while we are doing this radial angiogram, if it doesn’t work we‘ll Need to go through the groin area.”

You reach for your face as she said this. Then her words break through the morphine. You relieve yourself and kick your pants and shorts off and wheel your IV out.

“Sans pants and shorts.” They laugh and you climb back into your bed. As you lean back the pressure comes on full speed and you are gasping for air. The nurses bring you to a complete horizontal. Your breathing subsides and is back to normal with a slight pressure in your upper right pectoral muscle again.

You are wheeled by the two female technicians who are straining from your weight. But thats a hold back from your up bringing, when they get you to the catheter lab you say thank you as they look winded but actually this is where they turn on the steam and impress you as they know their routine.

A pretty one grabs your arm and begins to shave you and then the humiliation arises as your gown is removed and tape is applied to the underside of your gut and criss crosses against your chest and tapes it to the other side of the table.

You feel the tech begin to shave you and note that it only feels like half was done. Then another tech comes in and starts talking to you, “Your going to feel a bit loopy but you won’t be asleep for this.”

You feel the drugs going through the IV in your arm and then the eyelids get heavy as the cocktail takes affect. The doctor comes in and you feel pressure on your wrist as he begins work. After a while, your heart begins racing.

“Sir, we have reached your heart and we injected a dye to see the arteries in your heart. This heart looks beautiful, no blockages whatsoever, however I believe we found the culprit, you have a myocardial bridge. We are going to adjust your meds and then we’ll still have a pulmonary intern take a look at you about the breathing. Ok we’ll get you into recovery after we finish this. I want you to not use your arm for a few days”

After they affixed a pressurized square to your arm, the two that brought you down take you to a recovery room. In there a new set of nurses take care if you as they depressurize the plastic tube against the artery in your wrist. After two hours, you are returned to your room. Sleep over comes you as you begin to take in the events of the day.

There are things going through your head, but your more concerned about your wife as you scared her and that was the last thing you wanted to do this day.

The things going through your head as you realized that of all the stuff in your life, all the crap doesn’t matter but the one you love, the one you want to care for, for the rest of your life was scared of losing you.

So you tell them that the thing that scares you the most is losing them before you can spend the rest of your lives together.

Because, as strong as they think you are, there isn’t enough strength in the world to keep you together if you lose them...lose them before forever gets here.

They told me I was beautiful,

Fragments shattered in disarray

For beauty is in the shards,

"It's never lost," I heard them say.

"All broken glass glitters boldly

If you shine light the right way."

#poetry #microwrite

I wish I had the motivation

To be what I am

Strive for the stars,

Without trying to poison myself,

Drink

Drink

Down

I

Sink

Sink

Flounder, I fly,

Oblivion,

I am reaching

’cept for the recesses of my mind,

They

Creep

Creep

Creep

Until I write down all that I have,

And wonder why

I’m not what I’m not

Until I am poisoning myself.

#wine #writing #motivation #life