The crushing pain in my chest hit at 3:47 a.m. like someone had clamped a vice around my heart and was slowly tightening it with each labored breath. I’d been an emergency room nurse for twenty-eight years before my own heart problems forced me into early retirement, so I knew the difference between anxiety and the real thing.
This was the real thing.
I lay in bed for fifteen minutes hoping the pain would subside, that maybe I was wrong about what was happening to my body.
But the crushing sensation only intensified, radiating down my left arm in a pattern that made my blood run cold. When I tried to sit up, the room spun violently and I could barely catch my breath.
At fifty-two, I was having a heart attack.
My hands shook as I reached for my phone on the nightstand, scrolling to my son Ethan’s number. The twins were thirty-six now, both successful in their careers, both living in expensive downtown apartments about twenty minutes from my modest suburban home.
They’d been the center of my universe since the day I’d held them as newborns when I was barely seventeen years old and terrified about raising two babies completely alone.
“Mom, do you have any idea what time it is?” Ethan’s voice was groggy and irritated when he answered on the fourth ring. “It’s almost four a.m.”
“Ethan, I need you to drive me to the hospital. I’m having chest pain and I can barely breathe.”
I heard rustling in the background, probably him checking his phone for the time.
“Mom, you’ve had anxiety attacks before. Remember last year when you thought you were having a stroke, but it was just stress?”
“This isn’t anxiety, sweetheart. This is different.
I need to get to the emergency room right now.”
“Mom, I have a major presentation this morning. I’ve been preparing for this client meeting for weeks, and I can’t show up exhausted and unfocused.” His voice carried the sharp edge of someone whose patience was being tested. “Just call an Uber.
It’ll probably be faster than waiting for me to get dressed and drive over there anyway. And honestly, you know how you get worked up about health stuff sometimes.”
“An Uber?” I repeated, unable to believe what I was hearing.
“Yeah, they run all night and you’ll get there quicker. Text me when you get to the hospital, okay?
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