heart attack!

Heart attacks
“If you go around running marathons at your age,” announced my neighbour, “you will have a heart attack.”
“Why? “ I asked, “I train fairly regularly.”
She was a microbiologist as opposed to me a paediatrician.
“I read an article, athletes die a sudden death. Something is wrong with their hearts. It is better not to run.”
I checked. The article said this occurred only to young and elite athletes . Being neither, I was not too concerned--- that is until I developed chest pain in the middle of the night. It shot up into my head and produced tingling in my left arm.
“Get up,” I said to my husband, “I think I am having a heart attack.”
“Um” he said, “we will see in the morning.”
“I will be dead by then get up!”
Reluctantly, he opened his eyes, “Lets go to hospital.”
Remember, this is India. We have no 911 facilities. Relatives and bystanders have to get you to hospital in available transportation.
I started out of bed. “I need by clothes. They are in the cupboard.”
Further silence from husband. Then he announced, “The cupboard is locked.”
“The keys are on the table.”
After an eternity, he said” there are no keys here. Come in your nightdress.”
I could not face the thought of turning up in the chest pain unit attired in my nightdress. My husband had been teaching in the medical college for so many years that the doctors on call were very likely to be his students and people I knew.
I struggled, sat upright and searched unsuccessfully for the keys. “Perhaps I left them in the car.”
My husband opened the front door. Out bounded my 40 kg black labrador, unable to withstand the temptation of unexpected freedom.
“Catch the dog,” I shouted.
Husband disappeared behind the dog. I went back upstairs and lay down. Perhaps this was my destiny—to die of a heart attack inside a medical college campus.
Morning dawned—I was still alive, the pain had disappeared, the dog had been found and all was well with the world. As for the keys – they had been under my pillow all along!
I read an article recently—about how 50% of the women die with their first heart attack before they receive emergency care. I am not surprised. Men are taken to casualty wrapped in a towel, but women—they all have to dress first!