It’s said that during a near-death experience, your entire life flashes before your eyes.

When I had a heart attack five years ago, there was no visual timeline of my 47 years of existence. Instead, all that I saw was a fleshy, sequined covered butt wildly gyrating before my eyes. Gyrating left to right, up and down as the late summer sun hit the sequined clad butt, creating a kaleidoscope of colors radiating from said buttocks.

The sparkly hind-end belonged to a jumpsuit wearing Elvis impersonator, and the location was a country fair 12 miles past No-Where and 14 north of The Boondocks.

Suddenly, I felt strange and was quickly getting worse. Tired, winded, and somewhat incoherent, something major was wrong.

“Oh, Lord, no! Please, of all the places in the world to drop over dead, please don’t let it be in front of a chubby Elvis wannabe belting out a wobbly rendition of “Burning Love” on a portable stage next to the cow barn.

I could already see the newspaper headlines. “Williamsport man ruins Elvis tribute concert by dropping over dead. Irate fans bombard the corpse with half-eaten kielbasa sandwiches and deep-fried pickles on a stick.”

Fortunately, I didn’t die or even pass out. Unfortunately, I had to listen to “Burning Love” and “In the Ghetto.”

Three days later, I almost died when the emergency room doctor said I had a heart attack.

A heart attack? I’m too young. I never smoked or ate pork rinds! I never even ate squirrels. No way. I didn’t hear that right.

He said something else, something that sounded like a heart attack. He said a tack. A hard tack. I think.

“So,” I asked. “I sat on a hard tack?”

The doc’s expression went from concerned to confusion while making a quizzical face that resembled a constipated crab.

“Are you bleeding?”

“Is what bleeding?”

“Your rear-end.”

“No.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Should it?”

“So, this hard tack…”

Before he could finish the sentence, I blurted out, “Oh! For a moment, I thought you said heart attack instead of hard tack! But I don’t recall having an incident with a tack.”

Before he could keep playing Abbott to my Costello, the doctor repeated the news I didn’t want to hear, I really did have a heart attack.

The doctor informed me some folks, myself included, don’t even realize they had a heart attack.

“People see how a heart attack is portrayed on TV with the person stumbling around the room, clutching their chest and yelling wildly,” he said. ”That doesn’t always happen. Instead, they might have experienced a feeling like heartburn or indigestion.”

Reality set in and smacked me very hard across the face.

My mind was spinning. How would I tell my family? Would I even be around to enjoy the remaining four months left on my cheese of the month subscription? And gouda, my favorite, was next month’s cheese!

For the next two days, life became a countless array of tests followed by a parade of doctors and specialists probing, pulling, prodding, and poking.

The test results showed I didn’t need surgery; I needed major surgery in the form of a quadruple (4) bypass operation.

I can tolerate a lot of things, except hearing a graphic description of my anatomy and what a surgeon plans on doing to it. Hearing about veins and valves, transmissions, bones, and catalytic converters, I wanted to cover my ears and loudly hum a rousing polka tune.

The doctor would say, “I’ll start by making a deep incision, and the veins will need to….” But I would be thinking, “The Pennsylvania Polka. It started in Scranton; it’s now number one…”

The following morning, I yearned to be in Scranton or anywhere except on a gurney headed towards the operating room.

Somewhere between getting juiced up with medicine and being prepped for surgery, Marilyn Monroe jumped onboard the gurney wearing a purple evening gown.

Marilyn had an intoxicating scent that brought to mind lily-white lilacs, new tires, and cotton candy.

Within seconds Marilyn started shouting out bingo numbers. “B-7. N-33. I-23. Anyone have bingo yet?” After calling out a few more numbers, Marilyn started to sing a slow version of “B-I-N-G-O” while softy clapping her hands. “There was a farmer that had a dog and Bingo was his name-o…” Occasionally she would blow kisses to the surgeon unsuccessfully playing a game of Milton Bradley’s Operation.

Marilyn whispered in my ear, “Quiet. He’s practicing for your surgery.”

The surgeon hit the table, and annoyingly yelled, “This Operation game is difficult. Seven attempts, and I still can’t get this guy’s funny bone removed.”

Before I passed out from the drugs, Marilyn started winking at me while she ate a roasted turkey leg.

When the medicine started to wear off hours later, and I became coherent, winking Marilyn was gone.

Hours later, the surgeon said the three-hour surgery was a success, and there was no permanent damage to my heart.

According to http://www.Geisiger.org, heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States. Heart disease causes one in every four deaths each year. Don’t become that one person. See if heart disease runs in your family, keep your blood pressure under control, and see a doctor regularly. It’s the best thing you can do for yourself and your family.

For information on living a heart-healthy life visit http://www.heart.org.

My Heart Attack, or How I Sat on a Hard Tack
By Jeffrey Allen Federowicz