October 4th, 2024. 4:12 AM.
I woke up with a weight on my chest.
Not pain exactly. Pressure. Like someone was sitting on me. It spread up into my left jaw within a minute.
I tried to say my husband's name.
My voice came out wrong. Thin. Like it wasn't mine.
I shook David awake. He took one look at me and called 911.
I remember the cold tile under my feet. I remember the paramedic asking me what year it was. I remember lying on the gurney staring at the ceiling tiles and thinking, very clearly:
"This is how it ends."
It didn't.
They caught it early. The cardiologist called it a "minor cardiac event." He said I was lucky.
I didn't feel lucky.
I felt robbed. Because for two years, I had told my doctor something was wrong. And for two years, she told me what they tell every woman over 60 with a blood pressure cuff reading in the 140s:
"It's common at your age. We'll keep an eye on it."
That night, I promised myself something.
I will get my numbers back to normal levels.
What I didn't know yet was that my husband had already found the solution.