A Heart Attack Takes Me Off Line a Few Days

Late on the evening of February 24 -- a couple hours after posting my previous message discussing 'fraud' in the gay rights movement from the perspective of am 'ex-gay', very anti-gay writer dealing with 'the writers were a cover for the porn', I had a very bad experience of my own. About 4 AM Saturday morning (2/25) I experienced some severe shortness of breath. Raymond called for an ambulance, I was carted off in the wagon to Mercy Hospital here in Independence. I fell unconscious on the way; woke up naked on an examining table in examining stall 3 in the Emergency Room. (If you have not yet read that essay, please do so, right below this note.)

Apparently, my return to consciousness caused some body motions on my part which in turn triggered whatever it is the ER people monitor; they saw/heard whatever and came running in to my stall. They found me conscious, albiet confused; I tried to explain abou my shortness of breath, but the doctors said not only that but you also suffered a heart attack on the way over. . Well! They said I would have to go to Jane Phillips Medical Center in Bartlesville, the closest cardiac
place. Jane Phillips is 45 miles away, and is a good heart place.

I was in the hospital five days, Saturday through the following Thursday. They put a 'stent' in my heart, and re-routed several blood vessles which were plugged up. I was awake the whole time, in a procedure which took about an hour, which is just amazing. The Thursday following -- six days later -- I was permitted to come back home, albiet sort of sore and groggy. Now, about a week since I got back home, I am starting to feel like my old self, at least a little. That's me, then staunch old Episcopalian whose priest (Fr. Gerry Eycheson) just happens to coincidentally be the chaplain at Mercy Hospital. I remember very well that early Saturday morning when one of the ER workers (who recognized me) came by and said "do you want to have (Father) Gerry come around to see you?". I said yes, thinking at that time I might not even live the day out, as horrid as I felt, with pain, etc.

He got there five minutes or so later, I thought maybe I should have last rites given, that's how awful I felt. Anyway, I obviously lived to see another day, and now am thinking, maybe that heart attack was God striking me down or punishing me for my commentary on ex-gays earlier the same day as shown here on the February 24 entry.

PAT