5 a.m. on a Friday morning, during a lull in my overnight shift, I got a text from my friend Julie (name changed).
“Steve had a massive heart attack.”
Me back: “OMG, what happened.”
Julie: “Not sure, he called my mom, he thought he was going to die. Now they are doing a CT scan.”
And so it went on. As I waded through the information, Julie thought she understood I realized that she had completely misunderstood. I asked her more pointed questions, and we got to the real diagnosis; Steve was having an aortic dissection, not a heart attack. Shortly thereafter we (me, Julie, her husband and Steve’s brother) had an hour-long “family conference call.” I walked them through what a dissection was, what they could expect from surgery and how much information they should give the Steve’s granddaughters (ages 6 and 9). After we got off the phone, Julie texted me back: “You are wicked smart. I love how you explained that and helped us all out.”
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