Quit playing games with my heart attack.
The thing no one ever tells you about chest pains is that they don’t always mean you're dying. I mean, most of the time, they do, I guess, but it’s probably when you don’t think you’re dying that it happens. I feel like hospitals pump this “calm the fuck down, everything’s fine, you’re a fool” gas through the ventilation system. That door you never see open—the one on the other side of the room, opposite that door—lurks a motley crew of sleep-deprived, sex-hungry doctors and their obnoxious nurse lackeys watching footage from security cameras, peering at you, jerking each other off and laughing (at you for being a fool, I mean. Not the jerking-off part. They actually love that shit),
So, it was about 8:45 when I checked into the Emergency Room. Earlier that day—in fact, most of the week—I had been experiencing a slightly painful sensation forming in the center of my chest, sometimes spreading down the right side and sometimes the left side. As a side note, I once had my gallbladder removed because I had a bunch of shit gets stuck in the valve, and when the nurse asked me why I was there (right after I just explained the reason to the aid I thought was my nurse, after I explained to the front desk why I was here)I told her, “I think I’m dying!” I said, “I have a sharp pain in my stomach, and a hernia has ruptured, and I only have like maybe 30 more minutes to live,” or some shit like that.
Anyway, the point of this brief and to-the-point story is this: I knew all this because I had “googled” it.
So when I went in for what had to be my heart exploding, another med school flunky yelled at me, “Why the fuck did you do that!” She tells me, “The Web MDs of the world are only there as a scam.” She says, “Paid for by yours truly” (I still have yet to figure out who “yours truly” is). Then she gave me her fist to bump, but her knuckles looked gross, so I pretended not to notice their wretched crustiness. Anyway, an ominous warning I failed to heed, so I searched the fucking shit out of those symptoms.
“Tight chest pains.” Must be a heart attack.
“Pain moving down the left arm.” Heart attack.
“Pain moving down the right arm.” Heart attack it is.
“Pain in the neck or jaw.” Yep, heart attack and the bittersweet embrace of death’s eternal emptiness. Naturally, I contemplate how no one is going to come to my funeral except for my mom and Larry. You have to love that guy’s loyalty.
First, the panic sets in. Then, the chest pain continues to grow. Suddenly, a sweat breaks out (another symptom of a heart attack), and everything that happens next is a blur. All I remember was thinking of my funeral that no one goes to except for my mom and Larry.
The next thing I remember is the doctor coming into the makeshift hospital room holding up both thumbs. “You’re good to go,” she says.
And for a brief moment, after the news had settled, the thought occurred to me, ‘No one makes a fucking fool out of me, lady!’ That’s right. I wanted a second opinion. If I say I’m dying, then fuck me and fuck you, I’m fucking dying!
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Yep. Got the lab results right here,” she says as her finger taps the clipboard.
“Can I see them?” I ask.
“Oh, I don’t have them here to show you, but I’ll have the nurse show them to you when you are discharged.”
“You just said you had them.”
“Yup. I sure do. Just not with me,” she says.
“Why’d you tap your clipboard?”
“Oh, just out of habit, I guess. Okay. Good luck to ya, Mr. Walters,” she says as she back-peddles out of the room.
My last name is Walter, by the way.
THE END…
…On that particular part in the story, I mean. Right now, I am sitting in the living room of my mom’s house, typing this up a month after the visit. So, I haven’t died yet. I’m still using the whole chest pain thing as justification for not working out. And it’s funny, by the way, that after the hospital visit, my chest pains just seemed to go away magically.
What’s the connection between this piece and any relevant topic? I have no fucking idea.
With all that said, thanks for reading.
