19.
“I had my first heart attack at the ripe old age of 32. When it started, I didn’t know it was a heart attack because it was kind of like the pressure that comes with congestion. Me. I’m young enough that I’m still okay.’ That pressure, and eventually the pain, hit, but it wasn’t something that made you think, ‘Oh, I’m having a heart attack. I had to work that day, so even though my symptoms were getting worse, I took a shower, carried my luggage, and headed to the bus stop for my commute. Still stubborn (maybe my lack of health insurance at the time clouded my judgment), I decided to ‘do my best’ and go to work anyway. ”
“The bus felt like it was going a lot slower than usual, passing stops every time we picked up or dropped off a passenger. I couldn’t escape.” Then there was a moment of strange lucidity, and when my heart attack finally worsened to a whole new level, I thought, “If I don’t get help, I’m going to die.” There have been moments in my life that made me shiver and laugh (to deal with what just happened) about avoiding death.
A heart attack was something else, something special. I’ve had multiple heart attacks in my life, and they all hurt differently because they hit different parts of the heart. The right coronary artery felt different than the circumflex artery and both felt nothing compared to when the LAD (left anterior descending artery) was 99% occluded.
But there’s a chilling difference between the post-accident thought, ‘Oh, I could have died,’ and the conviction, ‘If I didn’t get help, I’d die’ when I had my first heart attack. . ‘
Death was no more real than when I was avoiding it, as it was when I was doomed to die. But the presence of the inevitable death, as a tangible thing, let me know in that moment that it was approaching me, and it still instinctively remains in my brain.
Since then, I have become much calmer and less bothered by thoughts of death. I accept it as the only fair thing in life. When, why and how are rarely fair. But all die. Indeed, our sun will eventually die. I believe that death and our destiny can make us better or worse. ”
