Perfect Imperfection

“No, no, no,” I said in my head with just a pinch of petulance. “There is no way you’re having a heart attack. You’re only 44 years old and-“

And then, without warning, he began to go down in front of us.

Now I am not really known for my lightening quick reaction times (except when dropping things in the kitchen), yet, for some reason I was able to catch him before he hit the ground.  As Heidi and I placed him on one of the over sized lobby chairs, Robert made his way to the front desk for help.

At this point I still really didn’t fully comprehend what was going on. I knew things weren’t good, but I still had a hard time wrapping my mind around the notion that a 44 year old guy, with no signs of a heart condition that we knew of, could possibly be having a…

And then it happened. With Heidi standing above him and me crouched in front, Tyler jerked backward in the chair. His entire body stiffened with his head rocked back. This was a frightening image in and of itself, yet it was the sound he made that really stuck with me. It was almost as if he was snoring. In fact it was exactly like he was snoring. To the point that, despite what I was witnessing, the voice in my head asked, Is he just screwing around? I mean, who snores when they’re having a convulsion?

And then the storm seemed to pass. His head slumped forward.

I looked up to Heidi and she said, “This is not good.”

No. Definitely not good because it’s looking like he might be dead. Maintain calm.

“Tyler?” I said as I shook his cold, clammy arm. “You there?”

He moaned softly and said, “I thought I was dying there for a moment.”

Heidi and I got him to a nearby sofa where he could lie down. By this time the doctor (well, we thought he was a doctor when in fact he was a lifeguard) got there and began to try and check his vitals. While doing this the first sentence out of his mouth was, “How much did he have to drink?”

In unison the 3 of us said, “Nothing. No alcohol.”

The doc-guard seemed to find this incomprehensible.

“No, seriously,” we said, “he doesn’t drink.”

Doc-guard went back to trying how to figure out how to apply the blood pressure cuff.

“We need to get Aspirin,” Heidi said as she ran off to the gift store to get some. And within moments she was back. “They don’t don’t have any fucking Aspirin.”

After a good 2 minutes of trying to figure out what each other was saying in broken versions of each other’s language, the medical conclusion that came down was to give Tyler a Coke and lay him down in his room.

Seriously.

In fairness to those involved even I was still under the assumption that he might just be having an allergic reaction, or…something…something far less serious that it looked, but I have to say that neither Heidi, Robert or I thought that a soda and a nap was the best solution, but for a split second we were frozen. What the hell were we to do? Where was the hospital?

Mercifully one of the women working the front desk, who had been watching the festivities transpire, came over to us. “He does not look good. I would get him to a clinica as soon as possible.”

That made our decision. By the time I could turn around Robert had already waved down a taxi. Without any further exchange they loaded Tyler into the taxi. As Robert climbed in behind him he shouted the code number for his room safe to me, and then they were gone.

As Heidi and I watched the tail lights of the taxi disappear into the dark jungle that surrounds the entrance to the resort all I could say was, “Holy shit.”

“Come on,” Heidi said, already marching towards our room huts.

The night shift of the Medica San Miguel Clinica had Tyler’s condition narrowed down to two things: 1) Gall stones, and 2) some kind of viral infection.

Viral Infection! My mind screamed and immediately began scanning my memory for things that he had touched that day. He had snorkeled with equipment he got from the dive center. Okay. Note to self, do not rent SCUBA gear from the dive center. Wow. We were getting to the bottom of this rather quickly. He picked up a virus from a dirty snorkel that caused him to have gall stones, which then led to his Alien-type convulsion in the lobby.

Yes! It all made sense now!

We would have to wait until the next morning to find out Tyler’s real condition. He had indeed had a heart attack. A massive one. The internist on shift that morning had gone over everything and then told Robert the news.

“You need to get this man back to the States as soon as possible where he can be taken care of in a class 1 cardiac unit.”

Jesus… Well, I guess that means the SCUBA equipment is safe.

At that point Robert’s only focus became arranging for a medical jet to come from the States to pick up Tyler and get him to a cardiac unit.

Heidi took on the task of picking up whatever loose ends Robert couldn’t take care of, and reassuring Tyler that all would be well. And me, well, I guess I was pretty useless aside from wandering around the clinic and the surrounding neighborhood with my camera.

By 4:30 that evening a medical jet had landed in Cozumel to pick up Tyler. This could have probably even happened sooner, but there was a really gracious call from Tyler’s insurance company to tell Robert that in no way would they cover the charges of the medical jet, which range between $30,000 and $40,000. Oh, and have a nice day. A terrestrial angel named Kelley would step in here and save the day.

Right before they rolled Tyler out of the clinic into the ambulance, he asked how long I thought it would take.

Bill: What? The plane ride? Well, if it’s a jet then-

Tyler: No. Whatever they’re going to do to me.

Bill: Oh, yeah, sure. Listen, you’re a young guy. Most likely they’ll probably do that heart catheter thing and you’ll be home in 4 or 5 days. At they very worst, you’ll have bypass and (Shut up, Hahn!)…well…It’ll probably be just the catheter thing.

Tyler nodded and in came the paramedics.

Little did I know.

And he was on his way.

And then it was just Heidi and I standing in front of the clinica, trying to process what had transpired over the last 20 hours.

Heidi: You hungry?

Bill: …Yeah.

Heidi: Let’s walk.

So we made our way to downtown Cozumel’s main street, into the throngs of jewelery peddlers and tipsy vacationers, everyone of us completely oblivious to the tightrope we walk every day. The amazing changes that can occur in our lives from one minute to the next.

And…maybe that’s for the best, now that I think about it.

Slightly weary, Heidi and I made our way across the street, away from the shops, to ocean side of main street. The sun was now setting and gave us a show that was unequaled for the rest of our trip. Although it sounds ridiculous, I choose  to think it was for Tyler.

Post Script:

The following morning we got a call from Robert describing Tyler’s condition. He was now in St. Luke’s cardiac unit in Houston, Texas. He had crashed on the way to the hospital, but was revived and now stable. The Houston cardiac team had determined that half of Tyler’s heart was no longer functioning and that the most likely course of action would be a heart transplant.

Amazing what a minute can do.

And that’s where it stands today.