He tries. I can see him trying. But his breath keeps hitching, his fingers still digging into his twisted shirt.
“Hurts,” he manages.
“I know. I know, baby. Just hold on. They're coming.”
The five minutes feel like five hours. I stay on the phone with the dispatcher, monitoring Seth and keeping him conscious. When I finally hear sirens, I nearly sob with relief, my legs shaking as I rush to the door to open it for the paramedics.
The three men who come in are efficient and professional. They put a blood pressure cuff around his arm, hook up EKGleads, and strap an oxygen mask to his face as they load Seth up on a stretcher. I hover around uselessly, answering their questions while wringing my hands and wanting to touch Seth and ensure he’s still here.
“Has he taken any medication this morning?”
“Yes, his regular meds. Blood pressure, blood thinner, aspirin. And nitroglycerin just now when the pain started.”
“Any history of heart attack?”
I shake my head and then nod. “No, but he collapsed three months ago. Stress-induced cardiac event. He's been here recovering, following doctor's orders, and then...” I gesture around the room. “There was a crisis at his work.” Tears fill my eyes as I remember it all. “He got stressed, and this happened.”
One of the paramedics looks at the other, and I see understanding pass between them.
“We're going to transport him to County Memorial,” the lead paramedic tells me. “You can follow in your vehicle.”
“Can I ride with him?”
“Are you family?”
“I'm his...” What am I? I said he was my boyfriend when I was on the phone with 911, which makes me his girlfriend. But that title feels too small for what we are. “Yes. I'm family.”
They let me ride in the back. Seth's glassy blue eyes find mine over the oxygen mask, and I can see the fear there. The same fear that's choking me.
“You're okay,” I tell him, gripping his hand. “You're going to be okay.”
I don't know if I'm lying.
***
The ER doctor is a woman in her fifties with kind blue eyes and a no-nonsense demeanor that I immediately appreciate.
“It's not a heart attack,” she tells us after what feels like hours of tests. “The EKG shows no damage, and your troponin levels are normal. But your blood pressure spiked to one sixty-five over one hundred and two. For someone with your history, that's extremely dangerous.”
Seth is sitting up in the hospital bed. His face is no longer gray, but he looks almost as pale as the white hospital gown he’s wearing, though he clutches my hand tightly as I sit in a chair beside the bed.
“What happened?” he asks, his voice rough.
“You had what we call a hypertensive crisis. Your blood pressure got so high, so fast, that it caused acute symptoms- chest pain, shortness of breath, near syncope. If you hadn't taken the nitroglycerin when you did, if you'd pushed through and kept working...” She pauses. “You could have had a stroke. Or a heart attack. Or your heart could have simply stopped.”
The words hit like punches. I feel Seth's hand tighten around mine.
“But I've been doing so well,” he says. “My numbers have been perfect for two weeks.”
“And you threw it away in twenty minutes.” The doctor sits on the stool near the wall, her expression firm but not unkind. “Mr. Donovan, I've reviewed your chart. I see you were sent here for cardiac rehabilitation after a severe stress-related event. I see your doctor's notes about lifestyle modifications, work restrictions, and stress management. And I see that today, you ignored all of it.”
“It was an emergency at my company-”
She quirks a gray eyebrow. “Is your company worth dying for?”
The question hangs in the air.
“No,” Seth says quietly, his gaze falling to his lap. “No, it's not.”
