Some Not So Enchanted Evening

It was 3:40am and there was no way I was going to get back to sleep. The pain in my chest was both sharp and crushing. My breathing was shallow and pained. I checked my Fitbit. No atrial fibrillation warning. My normal heart rate. I slowly got up for the bathroom and the pain shot down my left arm. I wanted to believe it was a muscle pulled in my sleep and nothing that needed middle of the night medical care but Doctor Google confirmed the exact kind of pain I was experiencing was consistent with a heart attack, so get thee to the hospital and fast. I briefly mused driving myself or calling an ubër, but Doc Google announced that “minutes count!”

I called W to alert him that an ambulance would be coming to the building and that it would be for me. He bolted to my apartment and began issuing orders, which I mainly ignored while trying to get through to 911. They hung up on me the first time but I tried again and suddenly I was awaiting my first ever ambulance trip.

I made my way down to the first floor in a painful leisurely fashion while W was in his apartment grabbing some stuff. This descent resulted in being issued further cease and desist orders, which I also ignored. I was in no mood for his common sense.

An ambulance pulled up in front of the house as the next door neighbour came out to her stoop to watch the paramedics in soldier green uniforms unload a gurney and roll it to my front steps. The paramedics seemed surprised to see me hanging out on the porch but helped me to the gurney and drove me into the ambulance. They left W on the sidewalk for the moment, clutching my purse.

As soon as they hooked me up to all the beeper machines, I recognized the confusion all health providers experience when they encounter my heart health while taking in the heft of my person. 

“Uh, your heart rate is only 54, in an ambulance!?” 

“Yep, it’s up a bit. It was 51-52 while I was monitoring it. 40s to 50s is normal for me. 60s if I’m excited.”

“Normal adult heart rate is 60. Yours is the heart rate we expect from elite athletes, like mountain bikers…,” he said, eying my ampleness.

“Exactly,” I say. 

Still skeptical, he looked at my 98% oxygenation and attached all the leads for an ECG. We both read the tape as it scrolled out. 

“Well, I’ll be going now.”

“What? 

“Have you ever seen a more perfect reading?”

“Uh, no actually, but this only tells a percentage of the story. You still need to come to the hospital for tests.”

“What percentage?” 

“Between 80 and 90,” he said much more softly. “With this reading we wouldn’t be going to the Heart Institute or using lights and sirens.”

I looked him in the face with the full force of my intransigence, but he wasn’t in a soldier paramedic uniform for nothing. He thought he had another weapon at his disposal. He opened the ambulance door, invited W in, explained the situation and implored W to talk to me. To W’s everlasting credit, he looked at the paramedic with pitying resigned bemusement. He knew futility when he saw it.

The paramedic insisted that I at least do another ECG. There was a wee heart rate leap when the ambulance power suddenly went out. Good thing I wasn’t actually having a heart attack. Power came back on and my ECG reading again demonstrated that a Lamborghini purrs within this Pinto frame. Mystified, the paramedic tried one last time to convince me to sit in an Emerg all night on a full moon with a chest full of mystery non-urgent pain.

“What do I have to sign to just go back in the house?” I asked, yanking off my oximeter.

He handed me a form and once again outlined the dubious benefits of going to the hospital with him, but I had worn him down. Even he realized it wasn’t happening. I signed the “Not our fault if you die a.k.a. The Told You So“ form, unplugged my 50 or so leads and painfully exited the ambulance. The paramedic made W promise to keep an eye on me and call back if needed. I’m sure the neighbour watching from her stoop felt this a most anticlimactic resolution.

Once upstairs, I was still stuck in as much pain as before the 911 call. W read his phone and waited for me to die, while I perused Doc Google looking for other contestants. I felt a sharp wave of pain and nausea and then…a toot. It was soon followed by another and another until W felt he could watch me sufficiently from his own apartment via text and fled. The toots got longer and louder and increasingly musical.

I began feeling a little better and, by 6am, I was able to get to sleep, tooting merrily. I woke up a few hours later feeling quite relieved, until I threw back the duvet and revealed my poor cat. 

Miso had crawled under the covers with me when I went to bed and had spend the last few hours being dutchovened. She looked dazed and was moving very slowly. Her mouth was hanging open. I petted her a bit and she perked up but appeared to have lost a few brain cells to the fumes. Both of us dragged ourselves out of bed, gave ourselves a shake and got on with the day. I felt fit as a fiddle and had no recurrence of chest pain.

Those lucky paramedics have no idea what a bullet they dodged.