Certain days in our lives bring with them events that will mark us for the rest of our time on earth. This is the kind of dramatic event that arrived for me, some three weeks ago. My life will never be quite the same.

Shortly after one Friday midnight I awoke feeling intense pressure in my chest. I quickly became convinced that I was either then having a heart attack or was about to suffer one. Alarmed at the danger, I enlisted my wife to drive me to the hospital without delay.

Despite strong reluctance to pass even one night hospitalized, I agreed to be admitted, was quickly tied up to a heart monitor, and underwent tests to diagnose my problem.

For months previously, evidence for heart disease had remained unclear. No one had diagnosed clearly the reason why I so often experienced, on my daily walks, feelings of constriction in my chest.  

As soon as a veteran cardiologist at the hospital examined me, however, he was sure I needed a angiogram, whereby dye would be sent through the major arteries leading to my heart. Though I had always hoped to avoid this procedure, I was anxious enough about my condition to agree to have it done. However, I would have to wait until the following Monday, which meant a longer hospital stay than I had bargained for.

The angiogram began easily, with the wire inserted through the groin up to the heart. It quickly revealed blockage in one of the arteries. The surgeon then asked me which of two choices I wanted to make: bypass surgery or the implanting of a stent, or small metal mesh tube placed in the artery to hold it open for blood to flow unimpeded to the heart.

The stent was an easy choice because it could be inserted right then and there; bypass surgery, clearly much more drastic, would have had to be scheduled for another time.

I share these perhaps unwelcome details with the reader in order to suggest the impact on me of this sudden emergency. The revelation of having a serious heart problem shocked me into a more sober view of myself in the world.  

Now on the way to recovery, I feel myself to have entered into a new era in my life. “As you get older, life humbles you,” says my social worker friend, Wendy Lustbader. I have been humbled and now have a different self-concept as a result.

In addition to my native bones, muscles and other natural parts I now bear within myself an artificial product, a piece of technology. Though I am told the device will not set off airport alarms, I am eerily conscious of having foreign matter within my chest.

Up until two years ago, I never took any medication regularly. To me, it seemed an ideal to stay clear of prescription drugs and I believed that many other elders took too many. As a result of the new experience, however, I have become a walking drug store and take a pageful of pills every day.

I also prided myself on my low weight and my exercise disciplines. My diet, if not perfectly in accord with enlightened nutritional guidelines, was to a large extent free of junk food (with the exception of cookies, a longtime  insurmountable addiction.)

Though the oldest of six siblings, I considered myself to be the most healthy overall. My brothers and sisters had suffered some health problems that I had escaped. I qualified as something of a model elder at large in almost never having to spend a day in bed sick.

Now I have tasted vulnerability and I must continue to live with a vivid sense of my own mortality. Only by luck did I escape sudden death from a heart attack. During walks full of chest pain, I could easily have dropped dead. The intervention of a highly experienced cardiologist in response to my need for help has saved my life.

My expectations for the future have also needed trimming. The surgeon has told me that his work should bring me ten more years. Is that all? What about that online test I took two years ago that projected my living to 95.3 years of age?

However, the changes in my mentality are by no means all negative. I have gained a lively sense of the love that family members and friends hold for me. On hearing of my ordeal, they have all expressed concern for me and have rejoiced at my escape from mortal peril.

The care given to me by the hospital staff also makes me feel valued. Nurses, doctors, blood drawers and others worked hard to ensure my rescue and recovery. They have shown me that in a crisis, I can indeed count on the kindness of strangers.

I now feel a new appreciation for the wonder of ordinary life. As Rabbi Abraham Heschel once said: “Just to be is a blessing; just to live is holy.” Each day of life has become even more precious to me than it was before.

Richard Griffin