(A little over eight years ago, I was feeling very lousy and after three
days of feeling terrible and with no sleep, I decided to go into the
doctor. It was a Sunday afternoon. My girlfriend, at the time, her
name was Amy. She was Vietnamese, and she was kind and very nice
to me.
We had gotten into an argument the day before she left to celebrate
her sister's 50th birthday in Las Vegas. They had a time-share there
and were staying at one of the big hotels. Amy had called me just
before they took off in Las Vegas to see if I could pick her up at the
airport. I told her I was feeling pretty rotten, and that I was going in
to see the doctor. She was upset with me, and abruptly hung up.
By the time I had driven to the clinic, I was having a real tough time
breathing, and was very dizzy, no pain to speak of, but very dizzy.
When I finally got into the doctors office, I actually thought all I had
was the flu. I asked if they could give me a flu shot, and I'd be on my
way…
After they had diagnosed me, they told me I had suffered a massive
heart attack. After sedating me, they rushed me off to the nearest
hospital about 20 minutes away. When I got to the Emergency Room,
they put me on the gurney, wheeled me into what was a triage
room. They put my on an operating table, and once they inserted a
camera into one of the large arteries going to the heart, they looked
around to see if they could see anything. They could barely make out
what remained of my left ventricle on the left side of my heart; it
had been beating so hard, the muscle and most of the tissue had
turned very soft and could not pump any longer.
Little did I know, that over the last three days and nights, that
"lousiness" was really angina and little by little my arteries were