Two years and counting

It was two years ago today, Oct. 9, 2013, that I suffered a heart attack, something I had never even thought about before. Except for a tonsillectomy when I was six years old, I had always been as healthy as a horse without restricting myself to a healthy lifestyle like so many do these days. The only ailments I had were colds and the occasional flu. I've never had a broken bone, been diagnosed with any illness nor had I spent even one night in the hospital until two years ago.

But that changed everything in a heartbeat. I had been having discomfort in the chest for a couple of weeks but wrote it off as heartburn. It had gotten so bad a couple of times that I couldn't take a deep breath lying down so I slept in my recliner in the living room. October 9th two years ago was on a Wednesday and I was eating lunch with other faculty members from the college like we do every Wednesday. All of a sudden, the pains in my chest came back, I began to sweat profusely and one of my colleagues, Jim Garretson, said I needed to go to the hospital.

I've always had a general distrust for the medical profession even though I'm an educated person because I've always believed they don't know as much as they think they do so going to the hospital was anathema to me because up until that day, I couldn't tell you the last time I even went to the doctor. But I had never felt that bad before either so I drove myself to the hospital with Jim following.

I walked in holding my chest and the nurse immediately asked me if I was having chest pains and when I nodded yes, there was all of a sudden a whirlwind of activity focused on me. Sometime during that experience Jim left to go back to the college, they gave me a couple of quick tests and concluded I had had a heart attack and that I would have to be taken to Kearney. I called my family in Arkansas to tell them and as I was talking to my oldest son, Michael, they came in and told me they had changed their transportation plans from an ambulance to a flight-for-life helicopter. This obviously upset my son greatly and I tried my best to reassure him, telling him I was going to be okay when I didn't know if I was or not! Oddly though, I felt a peace and tranquility I hadn't experienced in quite a while that told me I was ready for whatever was going to happen to me that day.

Some of the personnel at the hospital didn't have very good bedside manners. A PA told me I needed to lose some weight which I didn't think was an appropriate topic to discuss at the time even though I agreed with him. Another person told me I might not survive the flight to Kearney, which I thought was a very strange thing to tell a patient who was having heart problems when the objective should be to calm the person instead of alarm them. One of the nurses asked me if I was related to the Mike Hendricks that taught at the college and I had to tell her I WAS the Mike Hendricks who taught at the college. To make things worse, she had taken classes from me. I knew I was a little worse for wear than when she was a student of mine but I sure didn't think I was unrecognizable!

The helicopter arrived a few minutes later and in 30 minutes, I was being wheeled in to Good Samaritan Hospital with plenty of medical people around me and literally on me. I was taken into a room where it was determined that one of my arteries was 100% clogged so they put a stent in me and I stayed in the Cardiac Care Unit for the next couple of days where people monitored me literally 24 hours a day until my release.

I've had no problems since then and hope I don't. And even though the stent saved my life, I still don't trust doctors and wish I never had to see another one. But because I'm on heart medication now, that wish won't be fulfilled.

And as bad as that Oct. 9th day was, it was made even worse by being the birthday of the woman who broke my heart.