At first the thought only occurred to me that I was dying. That’s all a black thought needs to grow. It just needs a start. Since I had still not given up on life, I made an appointment with a doctor.
Dr. Mickey wears a white lab coat with “Mickey” embroidered over his left chest pocket in the same fashion as those individuals who drive beer trucks or repair air conditioners. I like the white coat and what it harkens to - another time when you trusted your medical professionals as healers and not just salespeople pushing purple pills or elixirs to battle erectile-dysfunction. The guy has a full head of thick grey hair though he doesn’t look a day over fifty. We talk a little at first about where I grew up (California), the position he plays on his baseball team (third base), and the particulars of my general complaint (imminent death).
He looks over my fresh ECG strip and we go over my family’s medical history. I confess to the fact there’s some prostate cancer lurking on my father’s side, mother’s father has heart disease, mother’s mother has diabetes, father has Parkinson’s. I share with him my medical records including my ECG strips, reports on my x-rays and opinions on the quality of my blood.
“Do you find life stressful?”
I don’t answer at first. I admit to myself being a bit more stressed out by my job. I’m a freelance writer. I live project to project. I don’t tell him this in so many words.
“I’ve had more stressful periods in my life.”
“Okay, you’re kind of a tightly wound guy,” he says. It’s more of a statement. It’s not a question.
“Well . . . ,”
“I get this feeling you’re the kind of guy that just might explode.”
More statements. No questions. But I keep treating them as questions.
“That’s true I think. I probably keep a lot of stuff in, and that’s a problem. I know there’s some truth to that.”
“How long have you been having these pains?”
“For about a week. It was really acute last weekend.”
“And you say it’s in your chest on the upper left?”
“And into my shoulder.”
“I don’t think the cause of this is cardiac.” He glances down at my recent ECG strip in an attempt to reconfirm what he believes he already knows.
“No?”
“Heart attacks and events like it - the pain starts right in the center of the chest and then moves up usually into the neck though yes, pain can shoot into the shoulder or other parts of the body. That, plus these pains not becoming acute during exercise or exertion would lead me to look for other causes, such as costocondritis.”
Dr. Mickey then pushes a thumb into the flesh of my chest muscle underneath the left shoulder. The spot aches even after his thumb departs.
“That hurts.”
“I bet it does.”
He does the same to my right shoulder, but no lingering tendrils of pain shoot across my chest.
“Costocondritis is an inflamation of the connective tissues around your ribs. I’ve read your records and that’s what your previous doctor wrote up - atypical chest pain most likely muscular skeletal. My suggestion is you take something like Advil or Aleve if it flares up. Now, I could send you to a cardiologist to do a stress test if you would like. I have a feeling you’re going to want me to. I would bet that if I send you away without an appointment to a cardiologist you’ll be back within a year wanting to get your heart checked anyway, so I think it’s a good idea just for your peace of mind.”
I just sit there thinking about this, but not saying anything.
“Do you have a wife?”
“No, I’m not married.”
“Girlfriend? Significant other?
“No, I haven’t been in a relationship for a year. My girlfriend and I broke up April of last year.”
Dr. Mickey writes something down in the margins of a sheet of paper upon which he has been noting my history. The silence is pregnant with things unsaid. Dr. Mickey looks up, his mouth opens ever so slightly as if wanting to speak, but then turns back to his sheet of paper to write more.
“Well, it’s sometimes good to have someone keep you on the straight and narrow and see the doctor more. The people in our life can do that for us.”
I leave the office with a lab slip for a new blood test, an appointment to stress my heart under the supervision of a qualified cardiologist, and newfound hope that I can stave off death a few more calendar pages. On the way back to my car I weigh the merits of cremation versus burial, making note that both the pain in my chest is gone and I feel fantastic in the warming sun.