It’s not every day that I post a blog update twice in 24 hours. But then, it’s not every day that a person celebrates ten years since their last heart attack. On January 8, 2002, I was sitting at my desk, pounding out one of several stories for the Rimbey Review. It had been a tough week. I’d been chasing a story on a couple young local men that had been in a serious auto accident New Years Eve.
One of them didn’t survive and the other, as I understood it, was clinging to life in an Edmonton hospital. I had already filed the story, with the details provided by a helpful RCMP constable who had attended the scene. At lunch that day, my debit card was declined. So, I stopped at the bank on my way back to the office to discover that my pay cheque had bounced. My boss assured me a new one was on the way, but just when wasn’t determinable. As I walked back to the office, I met a fellow whose name escapes me at the moment. He asked if I’d heard about the surviving crash victim. When I said I hadn’t, he said he’d heard the young man had passed away.
I spent much of the afternoon on the phone, trying to get confirmation, one way or the other. At the hospital, of course, they weren’t permitted to even acknowledge that such a person existed, but did offer to pass my number on to any family members that might pass by. I called every person with the same last name in our book. No answer – which made sense, if he’d indeed died, they’d be up supporting their relatives or be en route, somewhere. I continued to call into the evening. I was sittimg on a story that had him alive and in critical but stable condition. If, when the paper came out the next day, he was dead and we were claiming he was alive, it would be devastating for the family, not to mention troubling for the newspaper’s reputation.
As I sat at the desk, typing up other stories and wondering just how to handle the fatality story, I absently tore the cellophane off a fresh package of Players Light. Discarding the little foil cover, I lit up a cigarette, drawing in the first ‘puff’ deeply. My chest reacted by tightening up, something, after decades of smoking, I was quite used to. Probably addicted to, actually, since I think it’s the itching pain of filling your lungs with hot smoke that smokers find attractive in the habit. This time, however, the tightness didn’t stop. It spread through my whole chest and just sat there, like a severe case of peanut buttered white bread that’s most of the way down, but threatening to never relinquish your lower esophagus.
It got stronger and more painful and more, well, vise-like. I knew exactly what it was. I remember sitting there thinking, ‘So this is how it ends. This is how this wonderful life draws to its inevitable, although terribly premature close.’ (Well, maybe not those exact words, although the first phrase is verbatum.) And I thought about my kids and was immediately overwhelmed by sadness. They were way too young to be losing their father. I put out the cigarette, after a couple trial puffs to see if that would help. It didn’t.
I decided to go to the kitchen and see if a glass of water would calm things down. It didn’t. In fact, walking to the kitchen made the pain worse. I realized I was sweating profusely and my hands felt clammy and cold. I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I was gray. I remember thinking ‘This is what ashen looks like.’ I continued down the hall to the bedroom and woke Desiree. “I need your help,” I said.” I think I’m having a heart attack.” “Okay,” she said and rolled over. I woke her again, and explained that I needed an ambulance. “Like, phone 9-1-1?” she asked, innocently. I confirmed that, indeed, a call to 9-1-1 was the most appropriate action. (I had recently written a feature in the paper about people driving themsleves to the hospital after heart attacks or strokes. At the behest of the first responders, I was urging readers to call the ambulance and let them assist in saving threatened lives.)
I made my way back to the living room and sat down on the couch and felt some measure of relief. The ambulance was on its way, Desiree reported. I remember looking across at my desk and seeing the open pack of Players by the keyboard. I wondered if I coud get another one down before the EMTs arrived, since I was pretty sure they’d be offended if I tried to smoke in the ambulance. Hated to waste a brand new pack, like that.
Soon, there was a vehicle with flashing red lights at the end of the driveway and a knock at the door. Ronnie Coulthard and Lorie Lewis came in, with their stretcher already deployed. Ronnie asked me some questions while Lorie prepared a nitro patch for my chest. I offered to walk to the ambulance, since the snow was deep and my path was very narrow. They declined and helped me on to the stretcher. Desiree saw me to the door and said she’d see me at the hospital shortly.
The pain had mostly subsided as we headed up the street, but returned before we got to the emergency entrance. I was carted in, prepped and laid out in the emergency ward. Dr. Mike Boorman, who I knew well, came in to attend to me. He hooked me up to an ECG machine and, through good fortune, I had another ‘event’. Mike hit me up with morphine and told me to relax, that we were on our way to Red Deer.
He also said, in an effort to encourage me, “I want to see you out playing hockey with the Zen boys this fall.” I’d been trying for five years to be allowed to skate with this select group of Rimbey hockey players, mostly teachers, doctors, and others who understood the fine distinction between civilized sport and community-sanctioned violence. “So, that’s what it takes to make this fucking team?”, I asked. Mike nodded and smiled and we went for a seven minute ambulance ride to Red Deer. Well, the morphine made it seem like seven minutes.
So – that was Tuesday night. Thursday at Foothills, they installed a stent in one of my arteries (which I enjoyed far too much, being awake and watching on a monitor over my head). Friday, Desiree picked me up and we headed home. And I started life over, as a non-smoking wannabe hockey player. Ten years later, that situation hasn’t changed. In fact I weigh the same today as I did January 8, 2002.
What has changed is a new-found vitality I wrote about in yesterday’s post. I feel great. And I feel grateful, for a life that’s been interesting, fun and rewarding. I look forward to writing another update on Saturday, January 8, 2022.
p.s. As it often is, the information I got on the street about the crash victim was incorrect. Not that it mattered, since none of the stories prepared for that edition actually made it to press. Readers got a collection of canned copy about nothing in particular, instead.
My history has been to stay at something about a decade, then head off in some other endeavour, often unrelated. After a dozen years as a musician, I bartended and drove cab for a winter before re-inventing myself as a publisher. That created an opportunity to learn something about publishing, so I could help others complete their publishing projects. I walked through the door straight into the launch of the desktop publishing revolution, so the timing on that change, while entirely accidental, was priceless.
