February is HEART Month!

by Sandi Phillips

The appointed day arrived and about 30 teachers were in my dining/kitchen area and I was talking away about cookie jars. I wasn’t nervous. The group seemed to be laughing in the right places and asking questions that showed they were interested. At that point, I started feeling funny. I felt like I couldn’t draw in a big enough breath and it hurt to talk. Then my back started to hurt, first I was boiling hot and then in a cold sweat. By this time, everybody was leaving. I felt like I had an elephant on my chest! When I closed the door as the last person left, I thought if I just go lay down, I would be all right. Alas, I wasn’t. I called my hubby. He came right home, took one look at me and rushed me off to the emergency room. By now I was in a lot of pain and thinking, is this a heart attack? (It would figure that if I did have a heart attack, I would be talking about cookie jars when it happened, yes?)

At the ER they hooked me up to all kinds of machines and starting working on me. Several hours later the consensus was, it was not a heart attack. Whew! With heart rate as low as 37, they decided to admit me for observation.

That evening we called our daughter Anita from my hospital room and asked her if she was online. Could she check ebay, I was bidding on Rick Wisecarver’s, “Miss America” cookie jar and the auction had ended while I was in the ER. She checked and I had lost by $1.50!! Boy, talk about feeling heart pain! Then Carl remembered in the afternoon mail I had received a big envelope from Debbie Mumm. I knew it would be pictures of Debbie’s new Easter cookie jars! (Little did I know that it would be several days before I was home again!)

At five a.m. the next morning I had another attack. About noon I was told by the doctor, “You have one chance in 100 that you have had a heart attack and we’ll know after one more blood test is back.” I figured those were pretty good odds and went to sleep. Carl woke me up saying, “The blood test came back, you had a heart attack; they want to send you to Spokane.” (Spokane is 120 miles from Clarkston, WA where I live.) I told him fine, though I couldn’t go today as I needed to take a shower and pack. He gently told me, “The MedStar helicopter will be here in 20 minutes.”

Now like everybody else, I have goals in life. Flying in a helicopter in my jammies wasn’t one of them. Carl told me later, “I told the nurse to slip you a mickey, as you don’t like to fly.” Whatever. The helicopter and I were both high for sure! It was pretty gross getting into the helicopter. They opened a section of the tail, sliding my stretcher into this coffin like area. The ceiling was less than 10” above my head and I remember thinking, I CAN’T DO THIS! They kept on wheeling me into the craft until my head and shoulders were in the cockpit. I had a great view of the nurse’s shoes, as I was only wheel high off the floor! Above my head high up was a window and if I stretched I could see Carl standing by the hospital. I waved; he waved back. I felt almost as sorry for him as I did myself at that point, he looked very forlorn and scared. I later found out the flight took 40 minutes and cost a whopping $7,101.55!

When I got to Spokane, our friends and fellow ACJA members Mike and Cathy Bogulaski and their son Andrew came to the hospital bringing moral support and a Leeds Sitting Donald Duck cookie jar for my room. The jar was one of mine that Mike had been doing restoration painting on. (The next day they brought me a get-well cookie jar, the Vandor Cookie Stove. Trust me, cookie jars look great at the hospital!)

Several hours later, I said good-bye to Carl who had driven up and the Bogulaskis. I was wheeled into the area where they do cardiac caths. The test showed the bottom chamber of my heart was dead due to damage from the heart attack; I would only have about 80% blood flow from now on. A muscle in my heart had spasmed around the blood flow and caused the problem. Medication would be needed the rest of my life to control this problem. No other damage was found.

A couple of days later I was discharged and sent home. All along I had been thinking when they discharge me I’ll have Carl drive up to the back of the Mervyn’s store and he can run in and check for cookie jars . . . alas, when the time came I didn’t even ask, I was to exhausted from the whole ordeal! The two-hour drive home was about more than I could manage. The doctor said, “Don’t leave the house for two weeks except to see your physician.” No problem, I am thinking there is eBay! (Merla and I do eBay as a part of our morning routine now!)

I wish I could tell you I have had some profound thoughts or insights to life as I have been recuperating. Maybe Charlie Chaplin had the best insight of all, when he said, “A day without laughter, is a day wasted.” I am going to remember this experience with as much laughter as possible, so as not to waste any time and get on with my life.

I’d like to thank my family, especially my hubby Carl and our daughter Anita who dropped everything to come home and care for me. A very special thanks goes to Merla Davis. She flew here to Washington State from Oklahoma, after Anita went back to work, to be with me this week so Carl could go back to school. She is in the kitchen fixing lunch, as I write this!

To my many “cookie jar” friends, I say a special thank you for your prayers, concern and many thoughtful gestures. Bless you all from the bottom of the battered heart!