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"listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness, like a heartbeat...drives you mad, in the stillness of remembering what you had and what you lost...” – Fleetwood Mac (“Dreams”)

One of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with is my memory loss. The time from the heart attack until the bypass operation (4 days), is pretty much a blur. Most of the information I am writing about during that week has been relayed to me by my wife, Renee.

When we decided to move to New York (from Dallas), I was not very happy. Dallas was where I grew up. Dallas was where my brothers lived. My brother, Mike, although six years older, and I were very close since as far back as I can remember. Having him live about a half a mile away brought me a sense of belonging. Renee and the kids felt comfortable there and all of us loved the suburban look and feel of it. Dallas is truly one of the most convenient and beautiful cities in America. Within a five mile radius in north Dallas, there lies three large, stunning malls. It’s a shopper’s paradise.

The decision was very difficult. The reason we moved was for our children. I love our children fiercely and want to what’s best for them, no matter what. However, my kids are not the easiest children to raise. As I mentioned earlier, one of them is a special needs child. Although we have known that he was on the Autism spectrum, in was only later, in Chicago, that he was officially diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Furthermore, one of my now-5-year-old twin boys has a language disorder that restricts him from going to a mainstream school. The problem in Dallas was that there weren’t any Jewish schools who catered to these children. After weighing the pro’s and con’s, we concluded that New York was the best choice.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because, when the heart attack struck, my wife was on the phone with Hatzolah. Not 9-1-1, but the Jewish ambulance service. We had learned, just a couple of weeks ago, that they will get to you faster.

In less than three minutes, Hatzolah arrived. Since my wife had no idea what was wrong, she couldn’t inform them that I was having a heart attack. The two men who showed up immediately looked around for some sort of trauma, maybe bleeding or some other trauma. A minute or two later, an older paramedic arrived and realized what was wrong. My blood pressure was falling dramatically (it was 60 over 30) and I was not breathing very well. I do remember them carrying me out in an ambulance chair, since that would be quicker than going for the gurney. When the outside air hit me, I started to gain consciousness.  They then rushed me back to Maimonides.

As I was being taken out to the ambulance, the paramedic told Renee that she would have to go to the hospital alone because they felt, very strongly, if they waited any longer, I would not survive. I remember being wheeled in and greeted by a young, pretty doctor. When I saw her, I asked if she was an angel. I assume it meant that I thought I had died. She said no and that she was a visiting doctor from Los Angeles. She informed me that I had a heart attack and that they will do all they can to help me. I was brought into the operating room they performed angioplasty to determine the extent of the problem and to stabilize me. I think I remember being given a nitroglycerin tablet that dissolved in my mouth and then they knocked me out with pain medicine. While asleep, they connected a heart pump through my left groin so my heart did not have to work very hard.

When I woke up, I was in the ICU. Renee, having come shortly after settling the kids, met me there. When she saw me, she informed me that I needed to have a triple-bypass surgery and that they had to wait until I was stable enough to undergo the operation. The critical time after an attack as severe as mine was 48 hours. The majority of heart attack victims, under 40 years old, do not survive the initial attack. The doctor believed that the fact I survived the first attack was encouraging. The concern was that my heart could completely give out, causing a fatal second attack, at any time. Even with the pump. However, because my heart was so unstable at the time, they had to wait.

I don’t remember the room I stayed in at all. All I seem to recall from those four days was a large African-American man, who was called, “Mr. Jim”. I believe he was a volunteer in the cardiac ward. I remember him because he was a very funny guy and he brought me a newspaper each day. I also recall talking to some people on the phone. My favorite memory, and it is very vague, was that I felt an enormous sense of relief over the fact that I had survived the worst of it and now that I knew that the problem was my heart, I could start to reclaim my life.

The second day I was in Maimonides was Rosh Hashanah. I seem to recall that, but not strongly. Renee said I was very alert and aware of what was going on around me. She also said I was in very good spirits, making light of my situation and genuinely happy.

My surgery was scheduled for Monday. September 5th. I kind of remember being moved onto the operating table and asking the anesthesiologist if they were  going to sedate me through my existing IV line, or if they were going to poke me again. I remember feeling very drowsy while hearing his answer. Then I fell asleep.

Heart bypass surgery generally takes about an hour per artery. The feeling was that I would be in the OR for about 2½ - 3 hours. My operation time was 2:00pm, meaning I should be in recovery at around 5:00.

At around 6:00pm, Renee started to get a little concerned, however she understood that sometimes procedures take a little longer than anticipated. By 7:00, she started to get nervous. At 8:00, friends of ours came to the hospital and stayed with her. As of this point, no one had come out of the OR with any news. This continued through 9:00, 10:00 and 11:00. Now, Renee was downright frightened.

At around Midnight, My surgeon, Dr. Israel Jacobowitz, came out of the OR, saw Renee, and ducked into an adjacent room. I can only imagine what went on in her mind. Soon after, Dr. Jacobowitz told her that when they completed the triple-bypass, my heart would not function on its own. They then tried a fourth and fifth bypass to no avail. I was still alive, but only because of the pump. He continued by telling her that he has done all he can do for me, and is therefore going to attempt to transfer me to a hospital that deals in transplantation.

After making numerous calls. The doctor came back out at around 2:00am, with some unpleasant news. Apparently, I had been turned down by a few hospitals due to the critical condition I was in. I am assuming that these hospitals were afraid that since it appeared unlikely that I would survive, they didn’t want to ruin their success rates. However, Dr. Jacobowitz, who had been with me for over 12 hours, promised that he wouldn’t give up.

With every minute passed, my survival chances were shrinking. Finally, at around 4:00am, Dr. Jacobowitz returned with some good news. He had found a hospital that would take me. I found out later that once a hospital takes a patient in my situation, they are required to try and find me a new heart. Soon after, Dr. Jose Garcia arrived with his transplant coordinator, Sherman Casanova. After speaking to Dr. Jacobowitz for a few moments, he came over to Renee and told her that he was now responsible for my care and that Dr. Jacobowitz had done a remarkable job just keeping me alive. He informed her that they were taking me to Montefiore Hospital, in the Bronx and that there was a good chance I would not survive the trip. He advised her to go home and try to get some sleep, since she hadn’t slept for about 24 hours, and he would call her, should anything change.

I understand later they had done this because they did not want to have Renee in the ambulance, in case I passed. 

Very view people in the world ever face the possibility of going into a coma. Many of those who do have vastly dissimilar experiences. I have read that some claimed to hear everything that is said, even in comas that have lasted many years. Others, I’m told, have no idea until they wake up and realize it’s a different year. My experience was a little different. Sometime after they sedated me, before the bypass, I began to dream. In fact, I had four, very intense, nightmares. I’ve never spoken about the contents of the dreams before, because they were so disturbing. I’m sure that these dreams would considered mild by many of you, but to me, they haunt me with disturbed memories of my childhood.

The first dream I had was about my daughter and a friend of hers. They were about 6 years old in the dream (the same age they were when they were friends) and were playing in the friends’ brand new minivan. I don’t know if I actually saw them, but I know they were there. I remember looking for them and feeling lost. It was very warm in the car and I could not seem to be able to lift my head. The more I searched, the more frustrated I became. Furthermore, I feel like I was running out of air. The warmer it got, the harder it was to breathe. As it became unbearable, I seemed to have been able to “snap out” of it. Unfortunately, it only led into another dream…

When I was about 3 or 4 years old, I lived in Knoxville, Tennessee. In our basement, we had a large room where we had birthday parties and other events like that. I think for a while, it served as my oldest brother’s room as well. The next dream took place here. I remember being down there to celebrate Halloween. My siblings were all dressed up in costumes and we were playing around and having a good time. We then went upstairs to the living room. I recall vividly how the room looked and the sound of the voices of my family. I saw them there and heard them. It was so real.

In fact, a few months later and came across a video I had of my family, taken I when I was little. It was originally shot on an 8mm camera and transferred a few years ago onto videotape. The video played the exact scene I had relived in my dream. However, in my dream, there was more to it. The part about being downstairs and of going up, a good 5-10 minutes of time. I could consider this to be just my mind paying tricks on me, but there was something else. The voices. On the video, there is no sound. I heard them. I heard the sound of my sister and my brother as children. I heard the barking of my dog and the hollow sound the stairs made when climbed. I spoke to my brother and sister about this event and they seem to recall the missing part of the video, which I relived accurately, in my dream.

As we were playing (in the dream), I needed to go to my bedroom (or bathroom – I’m not sure anymore). As I walked past the front door, a very strange feeling came over me. It was feeling of immense fear. It was as if I was reliving a nightmare I had as a child (perhaps I had when I was 3 or 4). In this “dream within a dream”, as I walked just past the door, I noticed this vent along the wall. I believe it was an air vent. Suddenly, it began to suck me in. As much as I tried to scream for help, I couldn’t make a sound. It was suffocating me. Just when I had given up, I was transported to yet another dream…

It was a replay of another nightmare I had had as a child. This one took place on some distant planet. As I began to realize that I had this nightmare before, I started screaming for my sister. She was the one I remember taking care of me when I was little. She is 8 years older that me and was like a surrogate mother to me. I was screaming for her to wake me up. I didn’t want to be there. I felt, with all my heart that I just wanted to wake up and could not understand why I wasn’t able to.

Instead, I relived it. I recall being on this planet along with other astronauts. What I remember most was the cold and the smell. It was like putting your head in a very cold freezer with old tubs of chocolate ice cream. It had that freezer-burnt smell. As I was walking into a particular building, I turned around and realized everyone with me had left and stranded me. I was horrified. I seem to recall that there were lights all around and glowing. What I sensed was that the colors were very art deco. But instead of retro, the looked genuine. It was clearly as if it was the ‘50’s or ‘60’s.

I began calling for my sister again. This time I was distraught that I became to cry and plead for her to find me and wake me up. The more I screamed, the harder it was for me to breathe. It was torturous.

I don’t recall the transition between this dream and the next one.

It was a sunny day. I remember feeling the warmth on my neck. However, there were two other things I remember right away. One, I was a little black girl, maybe 10 or 12 years old, and two, It was probably 1959 or 1960.

My mother dressed me up in my nicest clothes and took me by bus to Northpark Mall, in Dallas. She was a very strict woman who made sure I knew my place. I recall being told to sit in the back of the bus as people stared at me with nervous consternation. I’m not sure how it happened, but the next thing I knew, I was on a riverboat on the Mississippi River. I was looking after my brothers who were running rampant along the deck. My father was a worker on the boat and was a brutal man. I seemed to have experienced constant beatings from him. As we moved northward towards Missouri, one of my brothers fell off the boat. Instead of helping him, my father took the opportunity to pull out his belt and whip me. As I screamed in pain, I felt my life slipping away. I knew he was killing me. Once again, I remember begging my sister to help me. Suddenly, the dream changed one more time…

One of the recurring themes of these dreams, with the exception of the bus ride in Dallas, was that the sky was either dark or it was indoors. The mood was always bleak. This time however, it was clearing from a heavy downpour. The sun was coming out and I felt a sense of “rebirth”, so to speak. I remember opening the front door of a house I didn’t recognize and seeing my brother there. I felt elated and went with him for a drive to see what had appeared to be a flooded neighborhood. As we drove, the clouds cleared more and the sun shone brightly. For some reason, I was feeling euphoric. I think I sensed that at last, it was coming to an end.

The next thing I remembered was waking up and having no idea where I was.

Go to Chapter 3