My Heart is Breaking

by Robison Wells

Last Saturday I came home from work and settled in to watch the BYU-Utah game. No, I'm not going to talk about that game, because I've talked about it a lot elsewhere and because, whatever your opinion is, you're wrong and I don't care.

What actually happened during that game is that I started getting lightheaded and fuzzy-brained (more so than usual), and my chest started to hurt.

Now, I've seen the Public Service Announcements that say what you're supposed to do if your chest starts to hurt, and I assure you that their advice did not go unheeded. Approximately five hours after it started to hurt really bad--really bad--I finally told my wife. (See, the thing about my wife is that if I were to tell her that I was dizzy and suffering from severe chest pain then she would want me to see a doctor.) (Women!)

The problem with me seeing a doctor is that I have no insurance. You know that "work" I mentioned in the first paragraph? It's work in the sense that I go to an office and do things, but it's not work in the sense that I'm employed, or that I have any income whatsoever, or that I have a dime to pay an insurance premium. So, having chest pain, what's an uninsured boy to do? Answer: assume that, since five hours have passed and I haven't died yet, then it's not a heart attack. Then eat something slathered in butter.

Well, the next morning wasn't much better. It was worse, in fact, only with less dizzy and more pain. So, I decided to bite the proverbial bullet--not the literal bullet; I don't have life insurance, either--and go to the hospital.

The hospital was quite concerned, insurance or not, and they plopped me in a wheelchair and gave me oxygen and stabbed me with an IV. They put electrodes on me and then took them off and gave me new electrodes. It was quite fun.

The verdict was, of course, that I have an allergy to wheat and that I need to keep a magnet in my pocket. Ha ha! No, these were real doctors. The verdict was that I have pericarditis, which is an inflammation of the pericardium, the fluid-filled sac around the heart. The cause: some little bit of leftover flu--I had the swine flu (hamthrax) in October--wound its way over to my heart and organized a rebellion. The doctor didn't say as much (because he's part of the Big Pharma conspiracy) but I figure that this is all somehow attributable to aspartame.

Anyway, the treatment of pericarditis is simple: rest and take drugs. I've spent a lot of time in bed lately, a heating pad on my chest and Lortab in my veins. It's been pretty great, all things considered.

But it was not all lazy lying down in bed. Sometimes I had to sit up and hunch over in pain. At other times, I had to make sad faces and cry like a baby. In other words, this is so way worse than cancer! Kerry's got nothin' on me!

So what I'm trying to say is that there's a very good reason I didn't reply to your emails last week, or do that thing that you asked me to do, or write a blog on time. Because if there's one thing you can't do while lying in bed, it's type on a laptop.