The Heart

 I've learned how to be intuitive and read the signs. I had two instances of chest pain, one at the West Virginia Capitol in Charleston, in late July when I had 45 seconds to talk about why a ban on abortions is bad. This was after leaving home at 5:45 A.M. to get there by 8. The other time, I was walking my usual 1.5 mile route around my neighborhood, when I ran into my friend Eleanor, out with her dog. She asked how I was felling and I said "Great" then realized I didn't feel great. Then my campaign manager's husband, eighteen days younger than I am, died of a heart attack, and there was an article in the paper about how having COVID could mess up your heart. I had COVID in August. Also, my ankles were swollen, not a good sign. 

 I left a phone message for my cardiologist. The nurse called me back. She said "So you turned around and went home when you were walking?" Technically, no. I continued my route, uphill, only slowly. I'm like that. The doctor called me later and asked if I wanted a heart catheterization. I begged off, citing my campaign schedule (I'm running for U.S. Congress for the northern half of West Virginia). I agreed to a stress test for last Thursday morning, the day after Yom Kippur. I did great on the treadmill, going fast and steep, up to a heat rate of 146 bpm without chest pain. That afternoon, feeling good about the test, I walked a half mile to the PRT, West Virginia University's little trains that cover the sprawling campuses and downtown, and rode to a pro-choice rally on campus. I saw friends there and had the opportunity to speak. I thought about asking for a ride home from someone I knew who lives a few blocks from me, but decided to go back as I came. Yes, I was tired. I was walking the last few blocks, when my cell phone rang.

"Hi, Doc. How are you?" I asked. 

"How are you?" 

"You tell me." He said there was a problem in my heart, apparently where I had my original heart attack in 2003. So a catheterization was scheduled for today, October 10.

It took some time. I was there with my husband from 6:45 until 11:30. I  joked with the nurses beforehand, and told them about my campaign. They were impressed that I was married to a man for nearly fourteen years. I was impressed that my husband got up early and texted back and forth with my sister the whole time we were there, without telling me until we were home. There were other perks: a handsome young man shaved my arms and my groin. I asked him about his life and how he got this job. He's an undergrad at WVU, there is a short training period, and he wanted to work while he was in school. I admired his determination and work ethic. I would never have touched an old man, even in that extremely non-sexual way, when I was that young.

I was semi-out for the procedure. I sensed they were doing something, but I didn't know what. They were putting a camera through my arm to look at my heart. When it was over, the two doctors woke me and said everything was fine, they didn't need to do anything. I guess something was irregular, but not bad. The staff at WVU Heart and Vascular were all great, every one of them. The young man who assisted the nurses, the nurse who told me she gets up at 3:30 A.M. to go to work and has a 7-year old son, my cardiologist, who has worked with me for ten years, and the people who check you in and out. I respect and admire all of them.

My father died of heart failure at 69, and my mother at 75 of pancreatic cancer. I'll be 73 this month. I get that one can't expect to live forever. WVU Medicine still wants to operate on my left eye and look down my gullet to see what's cooking there. The skin people want me to put some crap on my bald head because they think I could develop cancer there. I'm a mess. And I see why people just give up and say "I'm not taking any more medical treatments." I'm still trying to work it all and stay healthy, and I understand how important it is that I have insurance (Medicare, basically) and don't pay for most treatments. I hope that this wealthy country can make sure someday soon that everyone is covered for medical treatments. I want to make that happen.

When I talk to college students about my campaign, I tell them this is my "capstone," the last thing I do before I graduate. If I win, I'll try for a second term. If I don't win, I won't run for office again (b'li neder, look it up) .

The people at the hospital all said I was lucky, lucky to meet my husband, lucky my heart is okay, lucky to be walking around nearly twenty years after a heart attack. If I were a Christian, I would say I was "blessed." As a Jew, I just say thanks to God for all the good things in my life so far, even knowing it won't go on forever. 

In "Interview With The Vampire," someone asks why there aren't more of them, since they can't be killed. And the answer is that they walk out in the sun, which kills them, after a hundred or two hundred years, because the world has changed so much and all the people they knew are gone. I understand that now. "My" era seems long ago, and I don't understand much of what goes on today. In "Lord of the Rings," Frodo sails away at the end, because he was bitten by the spider. He looks to have recovered, but he says he only stayed alive to write the story.

Maybe my next project will be to write the story.