It was Valentine’s Day, I shuffled into school nervously as I clutched the lovely bouquet of roses, dodging all the “Are those for me?”s and the “Who are those for?”s. I couldn’t stop to answer them, I had to find her. I bobbed and weaved through the sea of couples crowding by the doors, in search for her. There she was, alone, just as I had expected, I pulled a rose from the dozen and nervously held it out to her and choked out a “Happy Valentine’s Day Cindy”. She smiled and thanked me for the rose with a hug…and a kiss! Success!

On Valentine’s Day I had decided not to be single, but also to not be alone. So, with that in mind, my day continued on like it had with Cindy, but with twelve different girls. I know it sounds trashy, but that was not my intention, each girl had dread being alone on Valentine’s Day just as much as I did, and I thought it would be nice if they knew someone thought about them on Valentine’s Day.

The days following Valentine’s Day I got extremely sick, sore throat, head ache, vomiting, the works. For the next three days I wasn’t awake much, but when I was awake, I was watching AMC’s “The Walking Dead”. I had never really cared much for the show, but for whatever reason, when I was sick, I loved it.

That Friday I was at my brother’s auto shop. He was welding while we talked about Valentine’s Day; He and his fiancé had a romantic evening at home…I told him about the dozen roses, he stopped welding and flipped up his mask, grinning from ear-to-ear. “There ya go! That’s how it’s done!” he said as he punched my arm with brotherly affection. His buddy Dave whistled in approval from across the shop.

At closing time my brother, John, drove me home, then drove himself home. I called out a hearty “hello!” into the house as I crept in through the door, only to be reminded that I was home alone for the weekend while my mom and her boyfriend were downstate; I decided to nuke some hot pockets and watch some television.

Around 9 o’clock I was overcome with pain. I fell to my knees and cringed. I was alone but it felt as if someone had slammed a rock into my chest, and now that I was on the ground, the were standing on top of the rock, pressing down on my chest.

The pain didn’t end; I crawled up to my bedroom and tried to lay down. I laid in my bed for what felt like hours, writhing in pain.

I woke up the next day feeling fine. It was as if last night had never happened. I went about my normal Saturday morning: A t-shirt, shorts, and Call of Duty. I was fine for about an hour, then it hit me again. Down again, my assailant was nowhere to be found, but I felt him, he was there again, pushing on my chest.

I reached for my phone and texted my mother “I think I need to go to the hospital”. My mom called me and questioned what was occurring on my end of the line, I told her, she called my brother who lives about ten minutes from my house. My mom called me back when she hung up with my brother.

Not even two minutes had passed and I could already hear John’s truck roaring as it barreled up the street and into the drive way. He leaped from the truck as if he were a paramedic team. I met him at the front door of the house, he rushed me to the truck as he questioned me about the situation.

He might as well have been driving an ambulance; John was known to drive fast for fun. This was the one time he was doing thirty or more over the speed limit and wasn’t having fun.

We got to the Medical Aid Unit and they began questioning me, just as John did. They began a series of E.K.G.’s and other tests I had never heard of. They called an ambulance and took me from a stretcher to the ambulance. The ambulance took me to Christiana hospital, the same hospital I had been born in; I thought “Wouldn’t it be ironic if I died in the same place I was born?”.

I was never a religious boy, but my father is, and I’m sure he was praying today wouldn’t be my last day.

I, on the other hand, was not afforded the luxury of having anymore thoughts, as soon as I got to the hospital I was poked, prodded, X-rayed, questioned, tested, and then I was back in a second ambulance and sent to A.I. DuPont hospital.

Christiana stuck an I.V. in my arm while I was there which I got to keep for the next five days while I was at A.I. DuPont.

At A.I. DuPont the whole cycle restarted again; Poke, prod, question, test, an endless whirl of doctors, family, and nurses.

They moved me up to my own room in the cardiac ward. The room was dark at night; it had a bed, a TV, and tons of monitors that they would hook up to me.
The nurse waited for my family to leave before asking me more personal questions (the ones you feel that an attorney should be present for). She asked me questions like: “Are you a smoker?”, “Are you sexually active?”, and “Do you use any recreational drug that is legal or illegal?”. I answered truthfully, figuring it would only hurt me more to lie or try to plead the Fifth Amendment.

The first night was the worst, they took blood every four hours, they were monitoring my troponin (an enzyme that is released by the heart when the heart is being damaged) levels. The nurse told me my troponin level was twenty; Average troponin levels for humans are less than one.

My troponin levels were more than twenty times more than the average human being’s! If I was 50 years old instead of 15 at the time, the doctors would’ve thought I was having a massive heart attack.
I woke up the next morning to balloons by my feet, and my mother on her laptop. My family cycled into the room throughout the day. I asked my mom to spend the night at the hospital and I fell asleep early.

At midnight I jolted awake as a doctor’s icy touch ran up my arm. Above me stood a gentle-faced Indian lady dressed in a typical doctor’s uniform, she introduced herself as “Doctor Thacker”. Barely awake, I answered softly “Very nice to meet you”, to which Doctor Thacker turned in shock at my politeness upon waking up at 12 am, she commended my mother for raising me to be so polite and Doctor Thacker exited the room.

For the next few days they monitored my vitals and my hearts behavior. I went through an MRI machine. An MRI machine is essentially a giant camera that sounds like six construction crews are working next to each other every time the camera takes a picture. The man conducting the machine would say “Hold your breath” which was then followed by a loud rattling sound as the MRI took pictures of my heart.

The day I left the hospital, my mother had told the male doctor that was watching over me about the dozen roses and the twelve girls and they decided that since they couldn’t figure out what virus I had gotten earlier in the week, and why it had attacked my heart and gave me myocarditis (a big fancy word for “swelling of the heart”), they decided that they were going to blame my sickness on the twelve roses.

As we were leaving the hospital, the doctor stopped me and said “Well…then I guess there’s only one question left.”
“What’s that?” I asked.

“The twelve roses…were they worth it?” he responded, and with a smile on my face I answered proudly “Definitely” and left the hospital.