0 ... Gabriel Morrisif I were carrying around a heavy weight. I wasn’t sleeping well, and
I felt groggy and cloudy much of the time.
I was smoking hand-rolled cigarettes a few times a day, which I
smoked on occasion while traveling—but which wasn’t helping my
emotional state much, or my health. One night, after staying late in
a local bookstore and then sitting on a bench for a while in front of
the University of Texas, smoking and watching the people walk by, I
suddenly felt as if my heart were skipping beats. It scared me to hell,
to say the least, especially when the irregularity didn’t cease. I even
feared that my heart might stop. And then, for a moment, I thought
that it actually had stopped, until I felt it start up again.
I held my hand over my heart to confirm that it was still beating
regularly, as I tried to make sense of what was going on here, before
I totally freaked out. I put out my cigarette as my heart continued
its irregular palpitating, and did my best to monitor the situation. I
couldn’t tell quite what the problem was—whether it was actually
my body going haywire, or just my mind. All I knew for certain was
that something frightening was going on, and that it was scaring the
shit out of me.
I finally concluded that I had better check into a hospital, since I
didn’t want to risk dying of a heart attack right then, if that might
possibly be what was happening. After looking in the phone book
to find the closest one, I walked towards the hospital, my hand
clutching my heart, trying not to lose myself in fear and despera-
tion. Once I found the hospital, I went to the emergency room,
stood in line, and then explained my problem to the nurse at the
counter.
“Well, there could be any number of explanations for your symp-
toms. We can give you some tests that might tell us what’s going on,
if you really think it’s that serious,” she said.
“Are they expensive?” I asked.
“Well, a couple hundred dollars for each one, here in the emer-
gency room. There are four or five different tests, that may or may
not identify the problem.”