A Pain In The Chest Is A Pain In The Butt

I’m sitting in my living room exhaling in relief. Why?  Because  I just ripped about 10 of those sticky heart sensors off of my chest.  Did it hurt?   If you’ve watched the scene in the 40 Year Old Virgin when Steve Carrell gets his body waxed, you know the answer.  Just hearing the sound of hair being torn from my body is painful. Worse, when I looked in the bathroom mirror, all the bare spots on my chest makes me look like I have mange.  I know it doesn’t compare to women giving birth, but it was no fun.  This is what can happen when you spend an evening in the emergency room. 

My trip to the hospital came up unexpectedly.  I woke up not feeling great, and by mid-afternoon had some tightness in my chest.  This triggered one of my Fundamental Rules of Life: we have two eyes, two ears, two kidneys, two lungs, and one heart - which needs to work properly in order to power everything else.  With that thought in mind, the next step was a no brainer: I got in my truck and drove to the nearest fire department.  It seemed like a good place to start.  

Upon my arrival, I was met by a friendly paramedic. “How can I help you?”, he asked. 

I’m having some tightness  in my chest.”

“I know what’s wrong with you, it’s that shirt you’re wearing,” he said, pointing to my crimson shirt with a white script A.  In this state, making an Alabama or Auburn joke comes before diagnosing someone with a heart problem. Glad we have our priorities in order. 

And chest pains or not, I wasn't about to let him get away with a comment like that.  

“So you’re an Aub ,” I said, shaking my head. “Hmm. You sure you wouldn’t be better treating mad cow disease? Maybe hoof and mouth, or distemper?”   This was a reference to Auburn’s veterinary school that usually rankled them.  

“Touché”, he responded, smiling.  

Then he got down to business,  giving me an EKG and a blood pressure check. They both looked pretty good.  So, I went back home feeling some degree of relief.  It was probably a pulled muscle, or maybe one of those old man afflictions - the kind that appear for no reason at all, hurt like the devil, and then vanish as mysteriously as they came. However, when another hour passed and my breathing became even more labored, I got worried. 

Now I had to make a decision.  Do I go to the emergency room?  The cold, uncomfortable, wait forever, COVID Petri dish of an emergency room? No! Then I heard my inner voice remind me of The Fundamental Law.  There was no choice.  I ruefully grabbed my keys and headed for the hospital.  

To my surprise, the ER wasn’t crowded.  I guess it was the cold, rainy weather keeping them away.  In fact, the minute I went thru the doors, I was immediately engaged by a very pleasant nurse who took my temperature, sat me down, and then asked me about my symptoms. 

“Tightness in my chest and shortness of breath,” I responded. 

“I know what’s wrong with you, it’s that shirt you’re wearing,” she smiled and said. I shook my head. “Again?,”  I thought.  Good Lord.  Do they teach a heckling course at that college? 

I had to follow protocol. So I retorted,  “I understand the jealousy. But it’s not too late. You can still convert. Come on over to our side.  It’s fun.”  

“That’s not gonna happen.”

That gave me a chance to use one of my favorite lines.  “Well, it’s like they say in church, I’ll love the sinner,  but hate the sin.”

I always make it a point to earnestly engage nurses and the admin staff in hospitals. It’s totally self serving.  If they like you, they can make little decisions to help your situation.  So, my policy is be funny, be nice.  Especially in the world we live in now. 

When I had shoulder surgery, the medical staff released me to go home before I had voided.  Put in redneck-ese, that means I hadn’t peed yet. Within two hours I was in agony, so we rushed back to the emergency room.  Now I could’ve been a horse’s ass to all those workers there, a classic case of kicking the cat. But they had nothing to do with my current plight, other than the ability to help fix it. So I was nice, even making funny comments to the nurse who had to put the catheter in me.  By the way, catheter comes from a Greek word meaning “it doesn’t fit”.  When another related  complication caused a second trip to the ER the next day, that same nurse was working the desk. She went out of her way to help me.  

And it also seemed to happen here.  Within just a few minutes, I was in a room, resplendently dressed in a hospital gown.  As most of you know, when they hand you this piece of attire, they always remind you that the gown opening  goes in the back.  You can be sure that before hospital personnel gave patients this warning, more than a few people put it on incorrectly and pointed something out to them. 

After the mandatory drawing of blood, I received a doctor’s exam, X Rays, a COVID test, an EKG, and a partridge in a pear tree. Nothing to do now but watch TV, wait on the test results from the bloodwork, and determine if I was having a heart attack. 

I wasn’t. They really couldn’t say what was wrong, but they could say my heart appeared to be ok. So now I’ve got an appointment with my personal doctor to get to the bottom of this of this medical mystery.  

And, believe me, I won’t be wearing my crimson Alabama golf shirt.

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