Heart Attack

Heart Attack(Michael D. Warner) HEART ATTACK

IF YOU HAVEN’T HAD YOURS YET, READ THIS:

By Michael D. Warner
Copyright 2011 by Michael D. Warner All Rights Reserved


The technician inquired: “Would you like to make a double red-cell donation today?”

Her accent seemed Caribbean, a tall dark-skinned young woman brightly beaming with a friendly smile, black hair swirling to the top of her white Red Cross uniform collar. She was new to me.

“Er.. I usually donate just a regular pint, every two months,” I replied.

She pressed a button on the console. “We really need it,” she continued. “Would you like to do it today? You know, the double..?”

Just then another tech burst in, charging at me like a car salesman nailing a hot prospect. He was a six footer, medium build, brown hair cropped short, square chin, narrow set, tightly focused brown eyes. The five o’clock shadow darkening his cheeks and chin was appropriate for the times. He wore a blue clinician’s uniform with the stethoscope dangling correctly from his neck.

“How are you doin’ today, Sir?” he asked rather loudly.

Lately, people seemed to be doing that to me, more and more as they came to realize I was much older than they. I wanted to holler back: Don’t shout at me! I’m a veteran. I’m an ex-airline transport pilot, programmer, business owner. I did thirty-five pushups this morning and I can still kick ass!

“I’m doin’ just fine, Pal,” I retorted. “What’s up?”

“Well, I just dropped in to encourage you to make the double red cell donation this time,” he commanded. “There’s really nothing to it. We take a pint, cycle it, then return your plasma back to you. Then, we do the process once more. It only takes thirty-five minutes,” he continued. “It’s easy, Sir, and we really do need it today. “How about it?”

I made a rather lame argument about being a busy man.

“Sir,” he repeated. “It only takes thirty-five minutes.”

What the hell, I shrugged, giving in. “Okay, let’s do it.”

I had been a regular Red Cross donor at this collection clinic but never had been pressured to donate other than my usual pint of whole blood. You see, blood is roughly half red cells and half plasma which is the clearer stuff containing your white cells, if any, and the chemicals, hormones and antigens being collected and dispatched throughout one’s body. About half red, half plasma. And, because the plasma doesn’t do anyone receiving it any particular good, it’s usually just wasted. Red cells are what’s really needed by the recipient. They carry the oxygen to, and the carbon dioxide from, one’s living cells.

Minutes later, after answering with mouse clicks all the usual probing personal questions, like: Had I had sex with a same-sex individual since my last donation? If so, did that event take place in Africa? In Great Britain? In the U.S.? And so on. No, I replied. Hell, I hadn’t even had sex with an opposite-sex individual since my last donation, whether or not in Africa, England, or even China. Anyway, minutes later I relaxed in my lounge chair bed in the outer ward as another tech prepped me for the big deal.

At least the view is nice, I thought, observing the girl facing me lying opposite in a similar chair, pleated skirt spread loosely just above bare knees. Her head, covered by elbow length blonde hair, was turned to the side, smooth face curving into the small pillow. Red lips widened to a smile as her blue eyes met mine. Pretty! I thought. And, quite likely aware of the show her skirt was producing. Then, I tensed at the prick of the needle in my now-swollen left radial vein. The sensation faded in a moment as I mentally urged the skirt to crawl upward another couple inches. Hey, older guys or not, we’re still males!

I returned her smile, sighing to myself: Well maybe forty-fifty years ago...

Fifteen of my thirty-five minutes passed. I watched as the tech disconnected my opposite partner from her hook ups, then sighed again as I watched her leave. She gave me a friendly wave, smiling over her shoulder. Soon, my procedure was completed and I was disconnected, admonished to drink plenty of liquids and to “take it easy” for a while.

This August afternoon the mercury topped ninety-six degrees. The black seat on my 1982 Honda SilverWing motorcycle sizzled. Ten pounds of ice nestled in a Thermos bag strapped to the passenger seat behind mine. A plastic cup sat atop the gas tank. I kept plenty of ice water available for riding during southern Summers.

PAUSE

Sunday morning dawned bright and already hot. I rolled out of bed, went through the morning rituals then piddled around inside. By three o’clock I was headed toward town on the bike. Passing a house under construction that my friend was working on each weekend, I stopped to help, thinking I would show those young guys a thing or two about how a real man worked.

Ouch! After helping lift only three roof trusses, I suddenly felt tightness in my chest, bad pain spreading between my shoulders, nauseated, and my arms began to feel numb. Backing away from the heavy truss, I made it back to the bike and swigged ice water. In five minutes I felt fine, but decided to quit. Feeling chagrin at having bragged so loudly about old fellas out-working youngsters, I rode back to the house.

That episode had been my first warning of an impending heart attack. But, naturally I attributed it to my being doubly short of oxygen carrying red blood cells generously donated the previous day.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. The next day, Monday, around noon, coming down the steps of my branch bank, the debilitating symptoms recurred. Okay, back to the motorcycle for more ice water. Again, a few minutes later, I felt fine. But late that night, my chest tightened again and a great weakness crept over me. I had to sit in a chair in order to sleep fitfully for a couple hours. By 9:30 a.m. I knew I had to do something. Being barely able to pull on clothes and shoes, I staggered outside to the car then managed to drive myself to the emergency room of Hartwell’s hospital, about a five minute rush from my place.

Almost crawling through the emergency entrance door, I managed to croak, “Heart attack!” then collapsed in front of the admissions desk.

PAUSE

The duty doctor ordered his staff to stabilize me, administering 40 milligrams of TNKase (known also as Clot-Buster) which hopefully would open a clogged cardiac artery. The intense pain suddenly vanished. Minutes later, two EMT’s appeared, moved me to a stretcher, loaded me into their ambulance then sped, lights flashing and siren wailing to the Athens Regional Medical Center 45 miles away.

The ambulance swung under the canopy of the emergency room entrance and screeched to a halt. Minutes later, I found myself lying on a stretcher inside the cardiac unit with the I.V.s still attached to both arms. A nurse/technician began sticking EKG pickup tabs to my chest and to my back almost before I had rolled to a full stop. A doctor appeared, gave appropriate orders then disappeared. The efficiency of the unit was impressive!

I was moved to a room where a male nurse checked my I.V. hook-ups, acquainted me with the bed’s control buttons, then left me alone. Time passed.

I drifted in and out of sleep. Later, a cardiologist discussed options and possible outcomes with me. I shrugged off the warning that among other unpleasant outcomes one could, in fact, die during the procedure. Hey, we all gotta go sometime, I thought. But, I always figured that my time would come in an airplane. Shrugging, I signed the consent form.

“No,” the doctor answered, shaking his head when I had suggested that maybe my double red-cell blood donation to the Red Cross had brought on the heart attack. “That’s unlikely. My guess is that your arterial clogging has accumulated for quite some time.” He added, “We see this condition often. That’s a typical result of smoking.”

“But, I quit smoking seventeen years ago,” I protested.

“The damage had already been done,” he assured me. “Your quitting just kept it from getting any worse.”

Next day, they would run a catheter into my femoral artery, entering where it transits my right groin, then up into my heart chamber to examine by fluoroscope the pattern of injected dye circulating in my cardiac arteries. This procedure requires the subject be anesthetized locally at the entrance of the arterial catheter then administered a drug metered through an I.V. which relaxes one and also reduces one’s memory of events occurring during anesthesia. For reasons which will become apparent, I refer to this chemical as “The CIA Drug”.

PAUSE

I recalled laying on a stretcher and being rolled into an elevator and apparently down into a basement.

“What kind of music do you like, Sir?”

Her ID tag dangled just below partially exposed cleavage. I couldn’t seem to make out her name in the dim light. Apparently, I wasn’t focusing on the name tag.

“I play the guitar, myself” I answered dreamily. “Anything will be fine.”

I thought she turned on a stereo. Anyway, music began. As her voice faded into the distance, I heard her tell me, “You’ll feel a couple of small needle pricks when we numb your groin and that’s all.”

PAUSE

Geeze! I squinted even harder ahead. Where the hell is that strip? I glanced over at my co-pilot. Bobby’s tanned face was strained. Usually, he was buoyant and joking incessantly. His brown eyes always carried a smile. A handsome devil he was, and the girls literally dripped over him. But now his expression was deadly serious, eyes narrowed as he peered intently into the murky distance. The sun had been down more than thirty minutes. Bright daylight lit the sky at our altitude but darkness was settling in rapidly on the surface making it harder and harder to discern features of the terrain.

The C-47’s engines droned. I felt a bit uncomfortable in my seat. I felt something like a bit of pain in my right groin. I wanted to land, to get out and stretch cramped muscles.

I glanced at the clock on my instrument panel, suddenly aware we had been flying thirteen hours, seven minutes. The past hour had been spent searching for the so-far elusive clandestine strip. Something caught my eye. Ahead, I could make out a small dust cloud floating just above the flat terrain.

“That’s gotta be it!” Bobby shouted over the din in the cockpit. He pointed energetically forward.

I scanned the fuel gauges again, wincing when I saw the needles on both main tanks bumping against their ‘empty’ peg. A few hours earlier we had run the aux tanks dry, squeezing every drop of 100 octane fuel from them before switching to the mains.

PAUSE

Vaguely, I felt tingling sensations in my upper right leg, yet only distantly. I drifted in and out of semi-consciousness. Suddenly, I was in the middle of the heart attack again: My chest, my back, my arms! A touch of nausea swept over me. I heard a distant murmur of hurried voices. Only a few moments passed, then the pain and discomfort disappeared. I breathed deeply. I vaguely recalled being rolled along a corridor, then nothing further.

PAUSE

Reducing power, I descended to an educated guess as to pattern altitude, perhaps 1200 feet above the ground. I trimmed her nose up to hold level flight, banked into a shallow left turn then stared downward through my side window. A herd of burros stampeded across the dim and dusty strip kicking up another cloud of dust. Two minutes later, we were on final. Darkness seemed to come on fast. Bobby lowered the landing gear and when I called out, gave me full flaps.

The C-47 touched down and I began applying brakes. The far end of the runway seemed to zoom toward us. Hauling the control column back into my gut, I stood on the brake pedals. My calf muscles strained. I pressed as hard as I could. It seemed I was virtually standing on them. The old ship began slowing. The thundering sound of the wheels pounding the rough strip ebbed. We rolled to a stop about forty feet short of the end. We both breathed a sigh of relief.

“C’mon, Man.” I shouted. “We gotta get out of here!”

I leapt to the ground then squinted through the darkness, watching where I placed each foot. I remembered his warning about snakes. They hunt at night in the Guajira, he had reminded me.

PAUSE

I opened my eyes. Four IV tubes dangled from hangars on either side of the bed, two insertions in each arm. Overhead, soft florescent lighting permeated the stillness. I noticed some pain in my right groin. The prettiest female I thought I’d ever seen was leaning over me, her voice droning low and serious. I began to realize she probably had been talking to me for some time.

I struggled to grasp the situation, sort of in and out of control of myself. Geez! I fretted. I hope I’ve got that airplane hidden good. I peered up at the nurse. I damn sure ain’t gonna be fooled by them sending in some pretty gal to pump info out of me. No way. The hell with them!

“Tell them,” I finally mumbled, squinting at her, trying to focus, “they ain’t gonna find that ship.”

I must have dozed off again. Where was my co-pilot flyin’ buddy, Bobby? What the hell have they done with him? Then I thought: Maybe he got away before they grabbed me?

I struggled awake to see three street-women standing close together by the right side of my bed. They were medium-sized, not dressed in hospital garb, and their images blurred as I tried to focus on them. I couldn’t spot any ID tags. One loomed closer. This one wasn’t blurred any more. She raised a threatening fist, brandishing it in my face.

“See this?” she snarled. “We’re gonna have to hurt you a little, understand?” Then she added, “For about twenty-minutes, maybe.”

I saw that the clock’s hands on the wall opposite pointed to eleven o’clock. I recalled being down in the operating room earlier at around nine p.m. They had informed me I would have to be immobilized for four hours and that they would have to press hard on my groin for twenty minutes when I got back to the intensive care room.

I drifted away. Nagging doubt. Where the hell was Bobby? Did they get him too? I flashed back to the landing. After our clandestine touch-down on the dirt airstrip in the woods, I had spun the large ship around then taxied her into a small clearing off to the side, nosing the C-47 as far as possible into the edge of the trees to keep her hidden from anyone searching from above. It had been pitch dark and the night was hot. I had wiped the sweat from my forehead and tossed my leather flying jacket back into the cockpit. In the dim glow of the interior lights I was aware of Bobby still sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, reaching to throw various switches, resetting levers and valves as he completed the engine shut-down checklist.

I had shoved open the cargo door, then jumped to the ground, being careful to watch where I stepped. Making my way to the tail, I began installing gust-locks on the flight control surfaces, then moving forward, inserting the landing gear safety pins and shoving chocks under her big wheels. Crouching under the nacelle I could hear the crackling of hot brakes cooling and could smell oil still sizzling from tiny leaks in the R-1830 radial engine’s block. The forest slowly faded into the distance, taking the ship and her noises and her smells ...and Bobby, with her. What’s going on? I wondered. I struggled to become alert. It had been such a long, long flight and I felt so very, very tired, now totally exhausted.

I forgot about the snakes. It was becoming a great effort just to plod across to the other wing.

PAUSE

Hey, I thought. What’s going on? I was flat on my back and it seemed I couldn’t move. Something heavy weighed on my right thigh. I looked around. The three girls were gone. I remembered the pretty nurse telling me it would be four hours before I would be allowed to move my right leg. And, that I was not to try to raise my head at all, not for any reason.

Yeah, I thought. They really think they’re clever. I saw light streaming against the closed venetian blinds covering the two windows in the wall to my left. But, the black hands on the large round clock on the wall in front of me only pointed to one a.m.

Right! I told myself. They have been screwing with the clock. Suckers! I smiled smugly. Don’t they know I’m a pilot? I can tell what time it is anywhere on this planet just by looking at the sun angle, and I won’t miss it by more than a few minutes either.

I moved my hand downward to the right. Geez! What the hell..? A large solid shape, shrouded in cloth, lay on my thigh. I could barely move my right leg. My left one was free though and I could strain to a half sitting position. I tried mightily to reach the heavy block. There, finally I had it. Shoving hard, I pushed it to the side. It fell to the floor with a loud “CLUNK!”

Just then, the door burst open, the overhead lights blared on, and two nurses flew into the room. By then I had made it to the edge of the bed and was attempting to get to my feet. Immediately, they pushed me back, forced me down and replaced the heavy object on my thigh. Then they began adjusting the IV needles, reinserting one which I had pulled loose. The pretty nurse who had first come to question me about my ship folded a bed sheet into a heavy strap then cinched it over my leg and under the bed to act as a restraint. The second nurse, another beautiful girl, stood to the left checking the IV’s and making adjustments to their flow.

The first one admonished: “Listen to me. Listen here. Listen up! The incision in your femoral artery has been plugged and if the plug loosens and comes out, you will quickly bleed to death. Do you understand me?”

Boy, I thought. You really are beautiful! I tried to think clearly. I concentrated. I knew they were trying to scare me into telling them where the ship was hidden. No way. I reached over to the right side of the bed to tentatively squeeze her forearm.

“Yes, I’m real,” she told me. Answering the question in my eyes.

Then I turned my head and reached with my left hand to feel the arm of the nurse to my left. “She’s real, too,” the first one repeated.

I glanced again at the clock: It read One A.M. Yet, light streamed from outside the room against the two sets of venetian blinds. Right! I reassured myself. They have definitely screwed with that clock.

I forced myself to put my hands under the blankets. I knew if I didn’t, I would likely grab one of the girls and begin shaking her to find out who had sent them. I knew this would be a dumb thing to do. I was in enough trouble as it was. No need to make it worse. I remembered them doping me up but now I couldn’t remember where I had hidden the ship, just somewhere out in the woods is all.

When I became aware again, the room was quiet and dim. I was alone. The two sets of venetian blinds remained brightly back-lit and the clock’s hands still only read One A.M.

Okay, I thought. Now I can make a break for it. I eased to a half-sitting position, pulled the heavy cloth covered block to the side, careful not to let it fall to the floor, pulled my right leg from under the restraining belt of twisted bed sheet, then swung my legs to the floor on the right side of the bed. Slowly, I made it to my feet, swaying back and forth. The left side IV needles pulled from my arm. I hardly felt them. I knew I had to pull the adhesive patch from my groin.

“Damn it!” I swore aloud as the patch finally began tearing loose, ripping a square inch of skin from my flesh as well. Anyway, I got it off and was trying to get it off of my hand where it had reattached itself when the door burst open. Again, lights blared. The nurse approached menacingly.

Busted! I knew it.

I growled at her, “You tell your boss that I’ll blow the son-of-a-bitch up before any of his people can even touch her!” Adding, “You aren’t fooling me one bit. I’m a captain. I can tell time by the sun. Look at the light coming through those blinds. Now, look at that clock. How many times have you-all set it back? You must really think I’m stupid, huh?”

As she forcibly returned me to my bed, I thought I noticed a light dawning upon that pretty face. She cocked her head to one side. I watched her frown then saw her glance toward the windows with a raised eyebrow. “The blinds?” she murmured softly, almost to herself. “The blinds?”

First, she rebandaged my groin, then replaced and adjusted the IV’s. She strapped my leg down, a lot tighter this time, then strained to lift the heavy block to rest it atop my thigh. She then strode purposefully across the room.

“Look here,” she called. “Look at me, Captain!” Her voice had a sarcastic ring to it.

I turned my head. She pulled the cords raising the blinds. There was no sunlight at all. Only the glare from fluorescent lights in the ceiling of the interior corridor running just outside my room. I stared through the windows at a painted block wall.

She lowered the blinds.

“You only have a couple more hours to lie still,” she told me. “Now, try to get some rest. And, please Sir, just take it easy, Okay?”

She dimmed the lights, and left the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

Nice going, Captain, I mumbled to myself, shaking my head, trying to clear it.

PAUSE

We are on a first-name basis, now. I know how long she has been nursing in the cardiac emergency unit. I know the name of her fiancee and what his field of interest is and of her progress in obtaining her master’s degree. She knows stuff about me too.

I have profusely apologized to her for my accusing her of working for the spy organization and trying to find out where I had hidden that ship. I have apologized to her several times this day for me giving her such a very hard time, and will likely do so again the next time she comes in to check on me.

“You shall be the femme-fatale star in the adventure spy-novel I will write,” I promised. “And, when they make the movie, that part is all yours.”

She leaned closer and smiled at me. I felt warm, and for an old bastard, somehow loved.

I watched her leave the room. She pulled gently on the door. It clicked shut.



PAUSE

I am alone again. The sadness slams into me. You see, Bobby has been dead for over five years. Lung cancer took him, from smoking cigarettes more than fifty years. I miss him a lot. We shared four interminable years in the U.S. Air Force from my early age of seventeen, then remained close for the rest of our lives. As civilians we flew the big iron birds together, the Twin Beeches, the C-47, and the B-26. We shot many tight approaches, fought rough weather and icing, landed in remote places, confronted engine and fuel problems and survived hostile gunfire. But now he’s gone. He returns from time to time to participate in my dreams of flying. I guess the CIA Drug they administered brought him back once more.

It all seemed so real.

THE END