On the plane
We were flying to San Antonio to visit the kids and grandkids. The first leg of the flight was taking us to Denver. About 20 minutes into the flight, I suddenly started feeling tired and nauseous. I closed my eyes for a couple of minutes and…

Pam was shaking me and calling my name somewhat urgently. I noticed that we were suddenly surrounded by flight attendants and other passengers.

Apparently, when I closed my eyes, I’d started shaking and acting weird. Pam tried to wake me but that wasn’t working so she called the flight attendants. Let’s call it Pandemonium.

Meanwhile, I’d had no sense that time had passed. It was like someone pushed the “next chapter” button on the video player. I was still feeling tired and nauseous. The only difference for me is that I was also soaked in my own sweat.

The flight attendants gave me some ice packs for my neck and some ginger ale. I drank the ginger ale. I closed my eyes and…

Pam was calling me again and we were back to Pandemonium. I thought “Oh no. Not again.” Beside me, there was a puddle of the ginger ale that I’d just drunk. My throat felt like I’d just throw up.

I felt that I desperately needed to lie down so they found a row further back in the plane for me. A couple of the passengers were nurses and they volunteered to check me over.

A flight attendant called a doctor on the ground and they decided to continue the flight to Denver and have paramedics check me out there.

In Denver International Airport
Even though I was feeling better by the time we landed, we still got escorted off the plane first to meet the paramedics. They established that whatever had happened earlier, I was fine now. But since I’d had a heart attack before, they wanted me to get checked out by a hospital. This seemed like overkill but I’d feel pretty silly if I died anyway.

There was also an implied threat that the airline wouldn’t want me on their planes without a doctor’s approval.

We were soon taken in an ambulance to the University of Colorado Hospital.

The University of Colorado Hospital
The hospital did a bunch of tests and found that I was fine. But since I’d had a heart attack before, they wanted me to have a stress test.

We figured that I’d take the darn test to shut them up and let us go on our way. Like before, this seemed like overkill but I’d feel pretty silly if I died anyway. And there was still an implied threat that the airline wouldn’t want me on their planes without a doctor’s approval.

Unfortunately, the stress test was positive. That means I flunked. They said that they saw areas in my ticker that weren’t getting enough oxygen. I was confused by this. I told them that I’d had a stress test 10 months ago and it showed that my ticker was getting better, not worse.

I spoke to the cardiologist and explained my cardiac history. Their view was that I was at risk of an imminent heart attack and they felt obliged to do a catheterization to see what was interfering with the flow of oxygen.

This was all counter to our plans of taking the darn test and getting the heck out.

They checked me in and said that they might do the cath (that’s what the cool kids call catheterizations) tomorrow (Saturday) or maybe the day after that or the day after that. Then they told me to not eat or drink anything in case they did the cath on Saturday.

Someone asked why I hadn’t posted anything about this. I said that it’d be a dick move to write about all this without knowing the ending.

To be continued…