Writing from the Heart: Speaking of the heart …

This is a story about how, if you live long enough, some things (like your health) will likely get worse; but if you pay attention, you’ll realize that other things have gotten way better with time.

A few Sundays ago, I had four AFib incidents in a row. I’ve had atrial fibrillation for about five years, but I’ve almost never actually felt it. However, on the Sunday in question, the “episodes” (or whatever you call them) were severe. My heart felt like it was jumping out of my chest.

The next day, it happened again, twice. Then on Tuesday, when I was just sitting quietly reading, my heart suddenly went nuts again, and I thought, “OK, enough. I’m going to see a heart doctor.” So I called the hospital and asked for the cardiologist, Dr. Brown, who, by the way, is a woman. Somehow I got connected to the triage nurse (another woman), who heard my symptoms and told me to go to the ER. I said “No, actually, I’m fine. I’ve had this before. I’m OK. I just want to make an appointment with the heart doctor.” 

And she said, “No, Nancy, go to the ER.” I said, “You’re adorable to be so insistent, but I’m OK, really.” And we hung up. 

Then she called me back! The triage nurse, Susan, actually called me back! She said, “Nancy, go to the ER, I mean it.” I said, “OK, OK.” I hung up, and Joel and I looked at each other and said, “OK, let’s go.” 

So off we went, at noon, to our beautiful hospital. They took me right away. 

The first doctor I met was a young woman. She was lovely, warm, and accessible. She took my vitals, hooked me up to an EKG monitor, and set me up to have my blood pressure taken every 20 minutes. An hour after seeing her, I met another doctor, an even lovelier woman (I say that only because she was tan, and it’s so gray outside), who sent me down for a CT scan and then back up for an echocardiogram. While I was waiting for the results, I thought about how cool it was that these two doctors, as well as Dr. Brown, plus the triage gal, were all women. 

You, dear reader, may be used to such a thing, but I am old, and in the olden days, girls like me went to work as secretaries, nurses, or teachers, period. You never saw doctors who weren’t men. In 1959, when I graduated high school, only 6 percent of doctors were women.

I remembered a popular riddle from the early ’70s. Here’s how it goes: 

A doctor and his son are traveling, and they’re in an horrific car accident. The doctor dies instantly, and they take the boy to the nearest emergency room. The doctor on call comes out, sees the boy, and says, “I cannot operate; this is my son.” What was going on? Everyone was telling this riddle, and everyone (including me and my very feminist sister) had the same answers: The driver in the car wasn’t his real father; he was his adoptive father. Or the doctor in the emergency room was his stepfather. Or they were gay, and there were two fathers. No one, and I mean no one, in those early days of women going to med school, said the doctor in the emergency room was his mother. 

And now here I was with not one but two women docs, and as weird as it might seem (since I should have been worrying about my heart), I was smiling, so happy that now 36 percent of all doctors are women.

Anyway, long story short (I know, too late for that), they found an aneurysm on my aorta, and they sent me in a helicopter to Mass General for next-day open-heart surgery. Long story even longer, that surgery got canceled, because the doctor (OMG, another woman! Yayyy!) had a very long surgery scheduled, so they had to bump me. So I returned to the sanctity of my Chilmark cabin, and they rescheduled me for the following Wednesday. 

On Tuesday night, we traveled to Boston (again), slept at a friend’s apartment, got to the hospital, as instructed, before 5:30 am (!!!). A hundred attendants got me prepped and ready to go, laid out on an uncomfortable gurney in my unattractive johnny (but not caring how I looked since I was about to go under the knife). A doc (this time a guy) (but a lovely guy) came in to say, “Your doctor had an emergency last night, and she’s still working on this patient, and even if she finishes early, we probably can’t do your operation since it’s Christmas, and there won’t be enough staff to do it.”

So back home, again, Joel and I went. I was tempted to be angry or irritated, but as we were leaving, it began to snow, and I love fat snowflakes even more than I love surgery that happens when it’s supposed to.

My new surgery date is Jan. 8, the day this piece is published. 

Just imagine, in the two weeks I have to wait, how many more young women might be applying to med school. 

I know I should be Googling YouTube videos about my aorta, but all I can think of is, in the two weeks I have to wait, how many more young women might be applying to med school. 

So instead of information or fear in anticipation, I’m celebrating my sisters and the future brilliant doctors they will all become.