well, that was a rush . . . .

"come for the flu; stay for the heart attack," one of the emergency room physicians quipped --- i came home from new orleans on saturday with a lousy cold or flu, i thought, and spent most of sunday in bed --- when my thermometer read 101, i was not concerned, but when it got to 104, i imagined myself becoming delirious or something, and decided to take myself to the emergency room, via the martha train since i am a block from one station and the hospital is a block from another (the 911 option having never crossed my mind for some reason) --- after a 20 or 30  minute wait amongst some people in a much sadder state than myself, i got back to be triaged, as they say --- after drawing bodily fluids for lab work to figure out what was wrong, they sent me out to the waiting room again, where after a few minutes i proceeded to experience what was finally diagnosed as a non–ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI), including awful pain, vomiting, cold sweat, etc, that continued until i got a shot of morphine --- it took x-rays, a CT scan, many needles, much blood work and what not before they decided to do angioplasty sooner rather than later, which is how my big present xmas morning turned out to be a new stent, to replace the ten-yr-old one that had gotten sorta gummed up or something --- turns out my thermometer is messed up, but its failure (or possible operator error) put me in purty much the best place for a cardiac event to occur --- better than the middle of bourbon street or the top of the temple of the sun at teotihuacán anyway --- (the cardiologists assure me that our planned trip to mexico city next week can go forward) --- in the meantime, i am finding this to have been a very centering experience