I Had a Heart Attack and It Was Hilarious!

To get an edge on the humor, watch this video from The American Heart Association's Go Red For Women campaign. It features actress Elizabeth Banks showing how women do heart attacks.

A couple weeks ago, our principal asked the teaching staff to post a highlight from our summer on an online survey. The survey results were used to play a match-up game among the staff during our first teacher workshop day and it was a great way to chat and ease back into our school year.  

There was no way I was going to enter what first came to mind. Instead, I said Cruised Casco Bay for my 50th birthday. That wouldn't freak anybody out.

The highlight I really wanted to list? Attended luncheon with four other women and we sat at a table laughing about our near-fatal heart attacks. I know better. This response in my workplace would have gone over like a lead balloon.  

I know about the lead ballon effect because I joked about my SCAD once -- just once-- at a team meeting. We were all very happy about getting a new water fountain, the type that's filters and fills a water bottle. One of my colleagues remarked on how the water in our building tastes terrible and wondered if it was even safe to drink. I replied, "It's probably fine. I drank it for a whole year and the only thing that happened to me was my heart blew up!"

Silence. Horrified expressions. I had put my big survivor foot in my mouth. My colleagues began talking solemnly about how awful that time was, the night they got the call, the weeks of my recovery, having to process with the students. My remark was too much. They had some residual trauma as well, and I had ventured too far into the dark side with my humor. 

Indeed, heart attack humor needs to stay in the heart attack club. What a delight it was, then, to meet four SCAD survivors this summer at the Samoset Resort in Rockport Maine. With the exception of one woman, who was a wonderful support to me right after my SCAD two years ago, we were all meeting for the first time. All of us live in Maine and fit the unexpected criteria for dissecting arteries - young, healthy, educated, active and vibrant.

Before the napkins were unfurled on our laps and forks stuck into food, the stories were flying -- and they were funny! Here were my peeps. Here is where I could let lose with the dark humor. 

Our humor seemed to most often come from the memory of trying oh-so-hard to maintain our composure while we slowly and silently slipped into what might have been our demise. 

This is how we do it. This is how a lady has a heart attack. She might -- oops! -- feel a little pop or pressure in her chest. Maybe a little gas bubble. A little tingle in the arm or a little bit of stress in the jaw. A little flutter. A little shaky. (These are all "little"). She lays down, just for a little. Or she goes on hoping it will pass because there are things to do, work to be finished, children to be brought somewhere, or dinner to be made. (These things to do are all "big" in her mind).  

One thing is for certain, we are most definitely not having a heart attack. Can't be. We demand that EKG machines be rechecked. We question the need for emergency transport. We prefer to drive ourselves to have that little something checked. Maybe later, maybe next week. After we mow the lawn. After we take a walk or massage the kink out of that muscle. That's all it is, right? A pulled muscle. Or maybe a burp.

Our collective stories all had these elements. As we sat there telling our survivor tales, the wide expanse of blue sky and sparkling ocean, which was our backdrop, fogged over into a wall of gray pulling us in closer and closer until there was nothing more to do but to embrace the darkened sky and laugh some more at our own ridiculousness, at our unbelievable predicaments, at our survival.

Before we parted, we hugged and talked about meeting up again and finding more Maine SCAD survivors. I hope we do. Until we meet again, I will keep my dark humor reigned in.