to anyone, anytime

Yesterday, as soon as I walked into my office, one of my crew came up to me and told me softly that my architect brother Ricky (whose desk is across a glass divider from mine at work) had suffered a heart attack and was in some hospitals ICU.

For a moment I felt all the blood drain away from my head and experience a sickening sense of vertigo. I remember thinking, oh shit, how can this happen?

So I called his cell phone (well, in my mental state I reasoned that if he answers his cell phone he must be okay) and he answered it. And he was in the ICU, IV'ed, monitored and hooked up to whatever. And he sounded okay.

Today, I used my lunch hour to visit him and discovered that while he exhibited the symptoms of a heart attack, what he really has is unstable angina (I just despise medical literature), and will be okay after another night or two at the hospital.

I hate things like this. I did not take it well when my mother was in and out of illness (and for a particularly challenging time, was given X years to live). I hate hospitals, I abominate illnesses, I abhor the thought of having a condition beyond my personal control.

So.

So I'm finally finally getting a medical plan thingie (all I have is life insurance) that will pay for my hospitalization, medication and therapy when the day comes. Maybe I-Care or Blue Cross.

I am getting older and with my nasty smoking habit, I may be next (and before my beloved friends and readers go on a "then quit smoking, you dope!" comment campaign, please don't. I am aware. I am.).

And maybe a little real exercise. This ring-around-the-belly is getting old.