The rest of the story

Staying at home alone for two weeks after my heart attack was a pretty tough assignment. My cardiologist said I needed rest so that's what I did. The only time I left the house was my daily walk around the apartment complex plus I made one journey to the college and one to Wal-Mart. Other than those outings, I was either watching television or reading. I can't watch more than a couple of hours of television at a time so I spent the rest of my time reading The Family, Kitty Kelley's inside look at the Bush dynasty, until my Amazon order got here and then the rest of the time reading "Killing Kennedy" written by Bill O'Reilly. I've always been more of a fan of non-fiction than fiction because, as they say, some of it is stranger than fiction.

I looked forward to the weekends because of wall-to-wall football but other than that, it was pretty boring and I was anxious to get back to teaching. That opportunity came this past Monday and I was as excited to go as I was my very first day. In fact, I couldn't wait to get there. But after I taught a couple of classes, I discovered why the doctor told me to rest two weeks before returning to work. I was dog tired and getting through my third class, which was 25 minutes longer than the first two, was a real challenge. All I wanted to do when class was over was go home and go to bed so that's what I did. I took an hour nap and felt refreshed and much better when I woke up. Tuesday was better and I gave exams on Wednesday and Thursday so no teaching energy was used on those days.

Physically, I feel better than I have in a long time and trust that will continue. I'm trying to do what the doctor told me to do as much as possible and although I haven't made all the changes proscribed for me, I've made some and that's progress for me. The most exciting thing is that the pain in my chest went away when they put the stent in and hasn't come back. Several people have asked me about the sensations I felt and I explained to them that it felt just like a bad case of indigestion or heartburn. There was a tightening in the chest and a feeling that if I could just burp, the pain would go away. But when I was able to burp, the pain didn't go away. I should have known then that it was more serious than just indigestion but everybody knows I'm kind of hard-headed. So I continued to believe that's what it was and self-medicated myself to that effect right up until the minute I had the heart attack.

The professionals at both hospitals said they frequently get patients in the emergency room who believe they're having heart attacks only to discover it was indigestion or heartburn instead. I misdiagnosed in the opposite direction and it almost cost me dearly because I did.

It's odd, though that when I was in McCook waiting for the life-flight helicopter from Kearney and people were walking around whispering to each other and pointing at me, I never feared dying, even though I was told that was a possibility. The only thing that upset me was thinking about how much I would miss my boys. But other than that, there was almost a serenity to my situation. I wasn't hoping to die, mind you, but I was ready if that was the ultimate outcome. Thankfully it wasn't and I get to play around here a while longer.

When I got home from Good Samaritan, I bought a death policy which I didn't have before then and made the mother of my children the beneficiary, calling and telling her what I wanted done. I had previously asked Cal Siegfried to emcee a memorial for me after my death so I sat down and typed up what I wanted and I'm delivering that to him today. People need to prepare for their deaths by expressing ahead of time the things you desire because if you don't, those things will be decided by others who might not have your best interest in mind.

But for now I'm OK and living a pain-free life for the first time in a while. I'll take that for as long as I'm blessed with it and confront the other option whenever that time comes.

Thanks once again to all of you for your love, support, and caring through my time of tribulation.