All you really need is heart

A weekend at a resort with jello like mom used to make

After weeks of labored breathing, I marveled at how blissful it was to take in deep, deep, deep breaths of sky. And after three days of having an IV needle planted in my arm, the moment when cardiologists 1, 2 and 3 told me I was free, free to be released into the wild and that IV needle was plucked from my arm by nurse Melissa, that moment was sweeter than hospital jello.

Last Thursday Morning

For 3-weeks I had been up to my neck in the rising waters of the river denial, dismissing my difficulty breathing as everything except a heart issue.

Clearly, I was having a hard time breathing because I was suffering from:

1. Sudden Onset Asthma aggravated by an allergy to pleasant weather

2. Something totally unrelated to my heart

3. Stress from deciding which hiking shorts to wear

4. Could not possibly be my heart

5. In the words of Dr. Temptations: It’s just my Imagination running away with me

6. Your heart’s fine. You have a new stent!

7. Lung Cancer

8. Anything but heart disease. Which was impossible

9. Old age

10. Could not possibly an issue with be my heart

Last Thursday morning I hiked up Pima Canyon as I often do. Twenty minutes in my breathing became labored. I was gasping like a flipping goldfish out of it’s Koi Pond. My thumping heart rocked in my chest like a boulder. My pulse was as good as it ever was. My Sudden Onset Asthma aggravated by an allergy to pleasant weather was trying to tell me something.

I’m clairvoyant that way.

I turned around, headed home and texted my wonderful Cardiologist at St.Mary’s, the compassionate Dr. Dakkak (rhymes with heart attack).

Friday Morning

I saw her Friday morning and decided not to share my ill-informed theories about what was happening to me. At her merciful and wise urging, my wife, Ellen, immediately hauled us next door to the St.Mary’s ER.

As we sat in the ER waiting room next to a tragically obese man in a wheelchair who reeked of piss, I focussed on breathing slowly, calmly, deeply, while Ellen, with equal calm read her New Yorker, and held my hand.

To pass time I took notes:

• Am I in the Tucson version of the SNL sketch “Appalachian Emergency Room”?

• 2 Limping construction workers

• Grandmother with painful kidney stone

• A grinning homeless man chattering to no one

• And a delusional man claiming to have a bad case of Sudden Onset Asthma aggravated by an allergy to pleasant weather

Friday afternoon

Mr. Fitzsimmons got called in for triage, blood draws, a lovely gown and while I waited in the exam room I heard the Cardiologist on duty was Dr.Habibzadeh, the talented man who implanted my stent two years ago. I described my symptoms. In response he did not note I may have been suffering Sudden Onset Asthma aggravated by an allergy to pleasant weather. Instead he informed me I was getting admitted and getting a short gurney ride to angiogram-land. The goofy grin inducing anesthetic cocktail made the unfolding exam delightful. I watch my thumper thump away on the black and white screen as dye injected in my wrist highlighted the arterial stars of the show. Dr.H said, ”Your heart looks good. The stent looks good.” I detected a tone of pride of workmanship. The conversation among the brainy nerds in scrubs turned to the mystery of what was causing Mr. Fitzsimmons to clutch his chest like Fred Sanford heading heavenward to his beloved Elizabeth. ( One of the side-effects of the anesthetic is “you may frequently reference outdated cultural analogies”)

Friday night

Admitted to the Cardiac Unit for observation and more tests I did not sleep well. I was tethered to a drip line and a bundle of wires that spoke to machines that beeped and booped and rang their dinging bells every time I moved. On a schedule of its own the blood pressure cuff growled and squeezed my arm and beeped and booped and if I dared to move my arm that would set off an alarm as if I were buying the farm. And every few hours there was a knock at the door.

• Midnight: “Sorry. We need a blood draw.”

• 1am: “Vitals! Time to take your temp, test your I.Q. and your blood sugars, dear. ”

• 2am: “Sorry to wake you, Yoda. Hearing test. ACME clown whistle company. Can you hear this?”

• 3am: ”Howdy doody. Sorry to wake you, pops! I sell windup toys. We call this model the circus parade one-man band. Aren’t those clanging cymbals and his flashing red nose something?”

• 4am: “Sorry to wake you, Methuselah! Vision test! How many lit Roman candles am I holding up?”

• 5am: “Sorry to wake you, pops. What is your pant size? We want to settle a wager.”

• 6am: “Good morning, sleepyhead. Checking your oxygen levels. Can you sit up for us, take a deep breath, squint directly at the rising sun and curse?”

• 7am: “Morning! I’m your day shift nurse. How did you sleep?”

Saturday

It was time for a visit from Detective Sonogram and her little friend the cold lube that tickles. I told her I was watching her “poker face” for any revealing expressions of horror, shock or surprise that suggested it was time to shop for urns. “Looks good,” she says, disappointing this Irish fatalist with good news.

For lunch I was handed spaghetti like mom used to make and Ranolazine, a wonder drug that opened my arteries and restored my breathing to sweet normal.

“What’s it called? Roo-nonzeline?”

“Ranolazine.”

“Razza-nun-saline?”

“Ra-no-la-zine. Read my lips. Rah-noh-lah-zine.”

“You know stress causes heart attacks, right? Ruh-nasal-vaseline?”

“Ranolazine.”

“Razolanine.”

“Ranolazine.”

“Ranolazine! She’s from west Texas, right? I dated her in high school!”

I learned my heart disease, the Arteriosclerosis which had blocked the big heart artery that was opened by Dr.H’s stent 2-years ago had progressed to my capillaries. Damn it. Curse you, entropy.

I consulted Dr. Google. I’ll be dating Ranolazine the rest of my life. I have a fight ahead of me.

Thankfully the new Ozempic regimen had been slamming my bad sugar numbers into the best zones I had seen in 25-years and would enable me, with my conitnued strict adherence to a healthy diet and exercise, to arrest the damage. And I could become a super model. I would be less vigorous but undefeated and totally hot.

I could breathe normally again. The discomfort in my chest vanished. I knew I’d sleep soundly that night. At least that was my plan.

Saturday night

I had a sudden Saturday night fever that came upon me faster than a Bee Gee’s flashback. Sweating in the dark I started reading texts from my friends sending me love and get well wishes and emails gushing kindness and more love and tears flowed. Then my dear, sweet Ellen sent this video to me of Iris DeMent singing the most beautiful song we know, “My life” and I bawled like a baby and watched it over and over and sniffled until my fever curiously vanished. Cried out I drifted away into sublime sleep. Listen here to Iris DeMent singing her song “My Life”":

Sunday

Sunday, during the day, I rested and Sunday night I made the mistake of watching the news from Gaza. I was mesmerized by the relentless images of children suffering and dying beneath rubble, dying far from the comfort of my hospital room where I rested in peace far from the sounds of rockets slamming into the earth. I closed my eyes and thought of the children of Nagasaki, the children of Herod’s Bethlehem, the children of Dresden, the children of My Lai and Wounded Knee; the innocent babes born to those who must suffer the price of madness. I thought of the empty verbal shrugs humanity has always spoken to justify the killing of children. It is God’s will. Collateral damage. Casualties of war. The enemy is using these images to soften your resolve. Don’t let the terrorists win. They should not have attacked us and killed our children in the first place.

I saw a father clawing at rubble, searching for his children. “I will dig with my fingernails if I have to! Help me!” I turned it off and remembered every doctor’s admonition about stress.

Five times higher

Yet we all must do what we can while we have the gift of life.

I decided that night the show I was producing would be a fundraiser for Doctors without Borders. Help me help strangers in desperate need. Buy a ticket here, enjoy a laugh and a song and donate: Old Pueblo Holiday Radio Show Raising funds for Doctors without Borders

And then I remembered Elijah. Earlier in the day, walking the unit, I met a 75-year-old homeless patient named Elijah.

The soft singing I heard coming from his room moved me to stop and listen. Resembling a Biblical prophet who played with ZZ Top, the fine vocalist was seated on his bed and facing his window, serenading a white cross atop the chapel he could see from his room. Standing in his doorway I quietly said, “You, sir, have a beautiful voice.”

He turned and smiled and sounding professorial he replied, “Why, thank you, young man.”

I learned Elijah was a sweet-tempered intellectual. We discussed poetry, literature and theology. A believer, Elijah was good humored about my infidel ways and amused by my heathen views. A James Joyce expert who preferred “Finnegan’s Wake” to “Ulysses”, Elijah was a linguist who taught English in Korea for much of his life. A tenor with an affection for old hymns and obscure Irish laments, Elijah, told me, “I’m a recovering alcoholic. I prefer the streets. These days I find comfort in the ancient wisdom in my Bible. Would you care for a bit of scripture, David?”

“Sure. Why not. Yes, I would.” My new friend opened his worn companion and without looking at the pages he randomly selected his choice.

“Psalm 127:2. 1 It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep. 2 It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.”

That night I finally fell asleep with “Make me an instrument of Peace” cycling through my head.

Monday

Today I would be released.

My good, wounded heart was filled with thoughts about my friend, Jim Nintzel, who was in Quadruple Bypass land. Candle lit, brother. My scar was a hole in my wrist. Jim’s will be much, much more impressive.

Waiting to be processed out I walked the halls one more time, encountering a PCSD deputy who looked vaguely familiar. “Hi, Deputy. Could you do me a favor?”

“What’s that, sir?”

I did not tell him that during my stay the patient next door to me had been a very unpleasant pain in the ass to all the endlessly kind and patient nurses. I simply asked him, “Could you taze a patient on this floor for me and for all the nurses?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think that would be possible, sir.” The broad grin on his face spanned the width of the hallway.

And then I found Elijah to say good bye. He was happily going home to his beloved streets today. We talked about the Andrews Sisters, Finnegan’s Wake and Garrison Keillor. I told Elijah about the different agencies that he might rely on here in Tucson. And I told him of a church I knew that had a modest choir that would welcome him. He wrote the name down. We fist bumped farewell. On my way out I said, “If I see you on the streets someday can I treat you to lunch?”

He smiled. “That would a pleasure, my friend.”

As I walked out to our car with Ellen by my side I marveled at how joyful it was to calmly draw in each deep satisfying breath of our beautiful Arizona sky.