As Serious As…

          My face may appear on the banner and while I don’t mind sharing my opinion, this blog has never been about me.  However, I have not been writing for several weeks and I wanted you to know why.  As some of you know, I have a heart condition. The doctors call it Atherosclerotic heart disease. I take medication for it. OnSunday October 11^th at around 4:00pm I felt pain on the right side of my chest that began to radiate down my right arm. For most people this happens on the left, but I’m a conservative so, I guess, even chest pains lean to the right. I took a nitro tablet, but got no relief and being a fairly typical male, I tried to ignore the discomfort for as long as I could.

          Around seven that evening I finally told my wife, Lorraine.  Since it was a Sunday evening the tiny clinic in the village was closed, but she wanted to me to call the duty aide.  Eek, the Alaskan village where I teach is very small and I knew if I said anything it would cause a commotion in much of the village.  I resisted for awhile, but finally asked Lorraine to pack some clothes.  While she did I stepped next door and asked the principal, Kip, to phone the health aide.

          Annie, the duty health aide, was soon at my house and gave me as complete an examination as any doctor would have done. She took me on the ATV (there are no cars in the village) back to the clinic. Lorraine grabbed a flashlight and hiked it along the dirt road.

          At the clinic, Annie and another aide proceeded to hook me up to O2 while they called the hospital back in Bethel. While I lay on an examination bed, I listened as they passed every detail to the Bethel hospital. But as time went on I gradually felt better and even told Lorraine, “I think we’ll be going home soon.” Almost at that moment, Annie came in and said the medevac plane was coming.

          They must have turned up the VHF radio because minutes later I heard radio crackle in the lobby and the pilot announce, “We’re ten minutes out from Eek.” It was about ten in the evening. Soon two EMT’s were doing a complete re-examination. While I told them that I was fine they hooked me up for an EKG, talked to the doctor at the hospital, took blood and gave me more nitro and another drug to slow my heart. Like the ladies at the clinic these guys were pros and I wish I could remember their names.

          Micah, a village police officer, must have gone to get the EMTs because he was still there with his ATV and a trailer. The EMTs loaded their equipment in the trailer and I climbed behind Micah for mile ride out to the airport. Lorraine followed on another four-wheeler. I have never driven or been driven anywhere as carefully as Micah drove that night. It is impossible to avoid the potholes in the rough dirt track that winds through the village and out to the airport—but Micah tried.

          The twin-prop plane made the trip to Bethel in what felt like record time and from the airport the EMTs manned an ambulance to take me to the hospital.

          As they wheeled me into the emergency room, it was approaching midnight and I was telling everyone who asked, or looked like they might ask, that I felt fine. The emergency room nurse smiled and took more blood. The doctor told me that if the blood test showed I had a heart attack they would immediately medevac me to Anchorage. All I could do now is wait.

          In the early morning hours of Monday the results came back, I had not had a heart attack. They took more blood and repeated the test three times, but the results were all the same, my heart was undamaged and beating fine. 

          After two days, I was back at work, but because they adjusted my medication, every day I came home very tired.  In the past after supper, I wrote, but for the last few weeks, I slept.  However, I seem to have adjusted to the medication and have spent this evening writing and hope to do so well into the future.