Almost Died While I Was Almost Dying

 “Call emergency.” I told my wife as I sat at the table doing my breathing exercises. My chest was tight, my blood pressure 147/97. Nothing to alarming other than my chest feeling weird and my body telling me something was wrong. 

My dad died from a heart attack only five months earlier. I didn’t know what was going on but I didn’t feel good and I was getting scared. I told my wife to move my daughter to my sons room with him as I took my shirt off and loosened up my clothing and laid on the couch. 

Garrison who just got his temp stay visa rushed over from across the street. The paramedics showed up a few minutes later. The emergency doctor took my pulse and knew right away it was arrythmia, ran an ekg to confirm then put me in the ambulance and took me to the hospital. 

The on call cardiologist gave me some medication that was supposed to even out my heartbeat. After fifteen minutes, I still didn’t feel well so they moved my wife and I into a room to sleep and said they would be back at 3am to check on me. 

At 1am the alarm sounded. My phone was dead and I couldn’t check Telegram. My wife called Garrison to make sure he was up, he moved the kids to the corridor. I sat up in the bed as the ZSU anti-aircraft guns belched out flak into the sky. They were close. Hospitals being a target of opportunity to Russian drone operators wasn’t making me feel any better. I could hear the Shaheds getting closer. 

My wife and I moved out into the corridor. She made the sign of the cross on the windows before we stepped out. I also forgot to mention I broke my foot two weeks earlier so I was in a jump boot and on crutches. Spring hasn’t been my season. Here we were sitting in the corridor of the hospital because of my heart problems unsure whether I was going to have a heart attack or a stroke while my kids were back home hiding from suicide drones. I thought about who would look after them. I tried to push out the intrusive thoughts of a Shahed hitting my apartment that night. Anytime I’m away from my family and drones are flying over the city the images of previous attacks pop into mind. The ones of mothers under rubble holding the broken bodies of their kids in their pajamas.

Machine guns blasted, drones blew up. Apartment buildings were hit. After an hour we got the all clear. I laid on the hospital bed in the triage room and wondered if we would be having any visitors. Thankfully we did not. The doctor came in at 3am ran the EKG on me, told me I was fine to check out after curfew lifted. At 0500 we caught a cab back home as the city slowly crept back to life.