Steve Moseley

Do as I say, not as I did’ is the theme of this dissertation about health.

Question: What kind of person has a heart attack for three days?

Answer: One who was asleep at the wheel.

The second Monday of March, I was beset by sudden-onset, searing heartburn (I thought). Call it GERD or acid reflux disease, but by any name the result was flame-thrower, searing pain behind this 75-year-old sternum. We’re talking glowing coals.

That night was torment and torture. Lying with full CPAP gear in bed or fleeing to the recliner made no difference; no matter what, I writhed in agony, accompanied by incendiary belching through the night.

Though I wouldn’t have thought it could, Tuesday was worse. That night seemed weeks long, such was the torment, accompanied now by shortness of breath, sweats and an odd, dull ache in fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulder, neck and throat.

Wednesday morning Good Wife Norma, my 50-year house nurse and 54-year bride, who’d been lobbying to seek medical treatment from the start, said, “That’s enough! Get in the van!”

Soon, I was under the care and attention of the York General Hospital ER staff. Following some poking and prodding on their part, the true answer revealed itself.

“Well, we found the source of all your problems. You’re having a heart attack,” was the blunt pronouncement of Trevor Hansen, the York Medical Clinic PA on emergency duty that day.

My electrocardiogram was fine, but the lab revealed a spike in the level of a pesky enzyme gone berserk.

I came to learn a trip to the big city lay in my future. First it was to be Omaha, but the VA relented and approved the Nebraska Heart Institute in Lincoln. This way daughter Tiffany could get in on the fun and GWN would crash with her nearby.

I said something about making an appointment for some time in the next couple days, to which GWN cut me off with, “No, this is going to happen today.”

Still, I remained in a fog that was equal parts denial and dense.

It seemed logical to stop at home for a shower before GWN drove me to Lincoln. That didn’t fly, either.

Next thing I knew, I was in the back of an ambulance on I-80 with a pair of York firemen, as affable as they were professional, wired up like the wall of amps behind Angus at an AC-DC concert. No lights or sirens blaring (thank goodness), but the potential gravity of this was finally beginning to creep in.

By the time we hit the road, Trevor and company had medicated away the pain (I cannot recommend the taste of nitroglycerine). The ride was in blessed comfort. Relief at last.

Once off-loaded at NHI things began to happen in earnest. Serious things.

I was scheduled for a heart catheter procedure the next day (Thursday) and settled in for the night … but not before whole new levels of poking and prodding and probing and labs, labs, labs.

The pain now gone, I could finally sleep. And, boy, did I sleep. Even a parade of nurses, lab techs and the like throwing on the light every hour or so to draw blood samples, take vitals, adjust the stuff dripping through my IV and pass endless meds all night could not keep me awake.

It was wonderful.

Along about midday Thursday the cath team showed up at my door and fetched me away. Through what looks now like a pinhole on the inside of my right wrist, these skilled folks inserted a probe and ran it all the way to and inside my heart.

This is astounding stuff, which became even more incredible when the team implanted a stent through that tiny tube just as slick as you please. Turned out I had a 99% blockage in a descending artery on a lower portion of the heart.

There were a couple lesser plugs, but doc said they will respond to changes in medication, diet and exercise. No more butter as thick as the bread for me, and my treasured sedentary life of sloth is in jeopardy, too. GWN has pledged to enforce all of it and right soon. With vigor.

Of course, I have lots of company. You can’t swing a dead cat without whacking one or more Boomers with a stent … often multiple stents. But this is my little story. Learn from it if you wish.

The upshot so far, a week later, is to admit I feel better than I have in a long time. Hard to pin down, just more comfortable somehow. Less effort required for everything. This is simple common sense, I suppose, given how artery blockages get to 99% slowly over time. Think of a wheezing old Chevy with a boatload of miles on it running a teensy bit worse every day until it doesn’t run at all. When a clever mechanic "blows out the cobs" — Voila! — the rusty old beater smooths right out.

The question now? To whom do I give credit for quite possibly saving my life? Is it GWN for getting my sorry carcass to the ER or is it PA Trevor for nailing the diagnosis and knowing exactly what to do?

Tell you what, let’s lay credit (or blame for those inflamed by my politics) to both in equal measure.

Thanks to all my angels. On this deal they were everywhere.

(Contact the writer at stevemoseley42@gmail.com)