Part One: "It's The Big One Elizabeth!" 
On Sunday, August 6th, 2018 at around 9 pm I had a heart attack. I did not faint nor did I double over in pain.  Nor Did I pull a Fred Sanford and call out to Elizabeth (though the thought did cross my mind)  I just felt like I had a sharp cramp in the middle of my chest, and I was having a hard time breathing. I knew this was a heart attack. And when a hypochondriac is correct in his self-diagnosis, that is not a good thing. They took me to a local hospital and after some prodding and probing told me I needed open heart bypass surgery. That's when I closed my eyes and thought to myself, “This is not happening, this is a nightmare, that's all it is”. 

 But it was no fever dream it was real.

At my request, they rushed me to one of the finest heart and lung hospitals in the area. It was a long ambulance ride, but I must say, with the nitro killing the chest pains, and laying on a gurney being rocked gently by the ambulance, it was the most pleasant part of the evening.
When we finally arrived, I was shipped into a room and surrounded by what seemed hundreds of people hanging bottles on a pole next to me, sticking needles in my arms. I had never felt so numbed yet terrified at the same time. However, I kept saying to myself, “This is all they do here. So I am probably in good hands”. I have a vague memory of the anesthesiologist coming in and telling me she was going to relax me and give me a cocktail.  I asked her for a martini, a double.  She smiled and said, "This is going to be better than any martini you ever had, honey." 

 Then everything went good and dark. 

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