literary commentary & stories for remembrance

Doo-dah day is finally almost over.

A long time ago there was a judge in Hanover County, Virginia who called the Monday after the legendary Camptown Races “Doo-Dah day.”

He called it that because of the procession of drunk-in-public cases he would have to endure that Monday.

I call it that just because it’s Monday – especially ones when quarterly taxes are due.

I’ve read that most heart attacks happen on Mondays, too.

Mine did.

On the first Monday of June 2001, I awoke at 3 a.m. feeling that my sternum was on fire.

Indigestion? Acid stomach? Wishful thinking … and I knew it.

But denial still being strong with me, I got up and chugged some Milk of Magnesia, hoping that I would feel relief as it slid downwards. Because if I did, that meant this was just a really bad case of acid stomach (“heartburn” was not going to be in this morning’s lexicon).

I felt nothing but the pain and pressure like an elephant sitting on my chest.

So I knew.

Still denial held sway. I could walk around OK, and the pain didn’t get worse. So I made a decision. I would not call 911. Since I lived equidistant between two hospitals I’d pick one and drive myself.

That way I’d avoid the wait for the ambulance, the fire truck and probably a police car – all with lights ablaze – roaring into my quiet Bon Air neighborhood of that time. First responders can wake the dead (pardon the expression) at 3 in the morning. And all the neighbors would come out to look.

So I got in my car and rolled.

About half-way to Johnston-Willis (now a part of  CJW Medical Center), I knew my decision was a mistake. But I got there, drove up to the ER door, got out, leaving the door open and the keys in the ignition, and walked in.

I told the nurse who greeted me what was up and within 45 seconds they had me on a gurney on an IV.

I felt slightly better. A Chesterfield County Police officer walked in and left my keys. “I saw you come in and parked and locked your car for you,” he said. I thanked him.

The ER doc talked to me and called the cardiologist on  duty from the practice I had been seeing for episodic arrhythmia.

The nurses and everyone were great, and before long my cardio was there.

“The good news is you’re here,” he said, “but the bad news is the cath lab is at  Chippenham (CJW’s sister hospital, the opposite of the way I had come).”

So off I went in an ambulance to the heart center at CJW-Chippenham for an angioplasty which I elected to stay awake and watch on a monitor they placed so I could see my own heart while the procedure was being done.

That was something I had told myself I would never want to do – but by then I was high as a kite and it seemed quite reasonable.

It was an amazing experience, and I shan’t bore you with what I’m sure is beginning to sound like just another heart attack war story.

I got well pretty quickly. And today I am blessed to have learned some great lessons from the experience.

You see, I’m writing a memoir. And this is practice – and maybe a preview. But it is absolutely the part I hope will live on when I’m gone – that the experience was a wake-up call. Life is temporary, fragile, and God wants us to be good stewards of it. It is a gift.

So all these years later I still walk diligently (I listened to Larry King’s story). I work out several times a week at the Y (I saw what happened to some of my cardiac rehab “classmates” who did not stick with the program).

I pray more, and slowly have begun to hear “the still, small voice” with greater clarity. I’ve grown more sympathetic towards others who struggle physically.

When my old friend Willy said, “I am most richly blessed,” I know exactly what he meant.