The story they tell on the island is that after I had my heart attack, I drove the Ayala across Raccoon Strait, dropped Suzette off, and came back with Paloma and then drove myself to the hospital. The way I heard it later, it sounded stupidly macho. It’s true I did have a heart attack and it’s true afterwards I drove a 30 ton crew boat back and forth to Tiburon, and it’s true I drove myself to the doctor that afternoon. In my defense I didn’t know I had had a heart attack. Later when I knew what happened I just felt really lucky.
That morning of my heart attack, I took the boat across the strait and with Paloma, my 7 month old daughter, I came back. We left the boat at the dock and drove back up to the house. She had a cold and we were keeping her home from daycare that day. Going up the stairs to our second floor I felt tired and took it slowly. I made up my mind to call Kaiser and see someone. I thought I had pneumonia. Even after I got my breath back on the boat that morning, breathing wasn’t that easy. I felt like I had weights on my chest and there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air
I called the advice nurse and she made me an appointment for 3:15 in the afternoon. I took it easy that day. I think Paloma and I were both under the weather and rested together. She didn’t give me a bad time. She had an appointment to see the pediatrician for Wednesday. After I called the nurse, I thought maybe I would stack my appointment with hers. I didn’t feel like making the trek to the mainland that day driving up and down the 101 freeway. But then I thought about it and her appointment would be at the medical center in Terra Linda and mine was in the downtown San Rafael medical office. By the time I schlepped between the two I’d be frazzled. It was probably easier just to go for my appointment the nurse made for me in the afternoon.
I look back on that day and think how close I came to just not going. Thank god my heart attack wasn’t as serious as it could have been, I didn’t die. But who knows if I had stayed home I might have had another heart attack. I don’t know if I would have survived the second one.
So I trekked down to the ferry dock, took the ferry to Tiburon, walked to the parking lot and drove to San Rafael all carrying Paloma and a bag of her supplies. I found a parking space in the basement and went upstairs to wait for my appointment.
The receptionist offered us a conference room to wait in so Paloma didn’t have to be exposed to whatever was in the waiting room. It seemed like a parade of Kaiser people came in to see the baby. Paloma by this time was feeling herself, very charming and very cute.
We went in to see Dr. Pont, a young woman with long blond hair. She did a physical exam, listened to my story and then my lungs. She left the room and came back. She was very interested to know what I had been doing and asked me if I had been travelling. She made sure I hadn’t been flying at all or a long time waiting somewhere. She said I didn’t have pneumonia, my lungs were clear, but she thought I might have had a heart attack.
Some time ago I had described my heart burn to my doctor then using a clenched fist near my chest. I had to go for a series of tests after that. I learned later that a pain described with a clenched fist to the chest is a common symptom of a heart attack. This time I didn’t need to clench my fist to describe my pain. I didn’t have any pain. I just couldn’t breathe.
Dr. Pont said she wanted me to go to the Emergency Room in Terra Linda. I said I could do that and take Paloma along. She said, no I should call Suzette, and she would arrange for a ride. Suzette works 35 miles away in San Lorenzo in the East Bay; in mid-afternoon probably a two hour drive.
A nurse came in and gave me aspirin and they might have given me nitroglycerin. We waited, Paloma and I, and maybe I took some more aspirin. Time passed. And then I heard a siren.
A nurse came in and said, “Your ride’s here.”
I spent six hours in the emergency room with a nurse. Somewhere between the ambulance and my cubicle someone was taking care of Paloma until Suzette arrived. The nurse kept coming back to me and checking my pain. Ask me enough times and I could feel something in my chest, tightness or something. I got nitroglycerin and morphine though the morphine seemed unnecessary and I was mildly disappointed I didn’t even get a high from my medical narcotic.
After hours in the emergency room, the results came back from my blood test and showed I had troponin in my blood. Troponin is an enzyme produced by dying heart muscle. It was a very small amount indicating very little damage but it was there. Results in, they sent me upstairs and I got to go to sleep.
The next day they told me I would have an angioplasty to see what my arteries looked like. In the early afternoon I went into surgery at Terra Linda. From that surgery I was taken directly by ambulance across the Golden Gate Bridge to Kaiser’s Cardiac Unit in San Francisco. From the ambulance they wheeled me down another hallway.
Laying on the gurney I looked up at the ceiling. They were doing some sort of repair work and acoustic tiles were missing with electric wires sticking out. All along I had been trying to hold on to the normal. No one around me was treating me normally but I wanted to say, it’s me, I’m here. I’m just a regular guy, not just a cardiac emergency. I make jokes when I’m nervous. I told someone that I had expected a long white hallway but I had imagined the ceiling would be in better shape. I either didn’t get it out very well or that person had no sense of humor. I was disappointed when I got no reaction.
I went into surgery, there were a whole group of people there, and another catheter was inserted into my femoral artery. “You’ll be awake, but don’t worry,” they said. After what seemed a long time I had a panic attack. I wanted to get out of there. I was afraid if I moved I would damage my own heart and the next few minutes were excruciating and then they were done.
The next day a physical therapist came to help me walk around the ward. A nurse from the surgery told me I had six stents; I had had 90% blockage in both my right and left coronary arteries. She gave me a prescription to have filled. That was it, they were done. Suzette came, we went to the pharmacy downstairs and walked slowly to her car and went home.
It was like I had been the center of attention for a lot of very humorless people for two days; humorless but warm, capable and efficient. Just about the time it had sunk in, that I had had a heart attack and everyone around me had been watching me to keep me alive, I was told to go home. It was all over. I was OK.
Heart Attack? Even two years later it’s still hard to say the words without a feeling of unreality and gratitude that the heart attack was so minor, the people at Kaiser so good and that I am alive.
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