Michael Snoswell's Journal: Tarot and Heart Attacks

I don't think I mentioned I had a heart attack back in February.

Now I don't believe in those card reader people at all, but my wife does. Back in mid 2005 my wife spoke to some card reader she's consulted every year or so for years who gave her very sobering news that her new husband was going to die in February or at least have a very very close call with death. I wasn't thrilled either. Well I admit I forgot about it over the months.

Then (about 6 months later) on February 1st I was out running and got a huge, sudden pain in my chest. Being a bloke I slowed down a bit and walked home slowly and didn't say anything. We had people over that day and I went to work the next day (because I'm a bloke). That evening I was feeling really bad. I decided to see the doctor who couldn't detect a problem but wrote a referral to a specialist however later that evening I felt even worse.

I checked myself into hospital and was coincidently met in emergency by a good friend from school who's a cardiologist whom I hadn't seen in many years. He arranged tests and a treadmill stress test (this was at 10:30 at night). It all showed everything was fine. Blood tests came back negative. They kept me in overnight but next morning were ready to send me home. They said they would possibly do an angiogram but the tests all showed negative (and I was feeling fine by then). Then I remembered the clairvoyant and thought I better get the angiogram done just in case. The result? I had a 100% blockage in the right coronary artery (you only have 2 main coronary artieries). There was no damage to heart muscle as it had occurred just when I'd started my morning run and my body hadn't yet built up a big oxygen demand. If it'd happened more than a few minutes later (we live in the hills and my run first takes me up a very steep hill) my heart would have tried to continue pumping hard and would have been damaged, in fact the doc said I might have died. I now have two stents and feel heaps better.

Do I believe in that Tarot stuff now? Well, lets say I have a healthy respect for it - it could all be chance though couldn't it? Oh, and did I mention I've never met the Tarot reader and my wife had only spoken to her on the phone (she lives 1300kms away in another city, where my wife used to live). Weird though.