So, my (M/54) story.
In Summer of 2017, a friend passed from cancer. A few weeks later was his memorial, and I took a few hours off from work to attend it. Before heading out, my boss asked me to haul a rotating display rack down from the loft. I was pissed, because on an already depressing day, now I had to deal with pulling an upper back muscle on top of everything else. It ached just like when I pulled a back muscle in high school, which I never forgot. I knew it would be with me a while, just as it was then. Man, my boss was a see you next tuesday.
I headed to the memorial, and, despite doing the standard stretching, twisting, and self-kneading to ease it, the pain would not give. The memorial event was over-attended (he was a great guy) for the venue size, and I arrived too late to get a seat indoors. So, I sat outside with the dozen or so other mourners, in the afternoon summer sun. And I could NOT f#cking get rid of the muscle pain. My brain started unconsciously doing certain calculations and comparisons, and it suddenly occurred to me that this might be a cardiac issue. So, I sat there, in a growing panic, while formulating my next steps: I would leave to head back to work (and air conditioning, which my car did not have), and maybe eat something. Yeah, that was it! I needed AC and food! So, I had some food and chilled in the AC at work, where the symptoms gradually eased and eventually went away.
One week later, I was getting ready for bed, and I got the same pain. Then, I also had other symptoms that I didn't associate with heart attacks, so I was damned confused. Therefore, I consulted Dr. Google, and I was reading symptoms on some hospital websites. They all seemed to have the same info (not entirely matching mine), until I got to the last one before heading to the ER. Yes, it had ALL the same damned symptoms listed, but, at the bottom of the page, it said that women have certain different symptoms, and I thought it must suck for women, because medicine is weighted for men, which means female symptoms get short shrift. Being naturally a curious minded individual, I read the ladies' reported rare symptoms.
Match.
A tiny voice--a tiny, toxic masculine voice--in my head, said, "but, Paul, you aren't a chick! Don't fail your balls!" And, after the slightest hesitation, I said back, "fuck you, you toxic little shit, but fuck you LATER, because I gotta get to the ER now."
In short, I was having about the worst heart attack you can have. It is usually fatal as fucking fuck, which is why they call it the "widow maker." I honestly would be dead right now, had I dismissed the reported female symptoms to protect my masculinity. Thank god I had the sense to just run with the info and go to the ER. I woke up in ICU to the beautiful feeling of morphine being injected in my arm, but otherwise feeling like someone had parked a Cooper Mini on me. Three days in hospital, and a few weeks before I could sleep on my side again. 0/10, would not recommend.
So, men: the most important advice I can give you from this experience is kill that toxic masculinity fucker in your head and throw him aside. If I had felt my balls threatened because I couldn't accept that my symptoms weren't all GUY symptoms, then I would be dead (or, rather, still dead, as they broke my ribs and shocked me back into this plane of existence).
[Related: I now can honestly quote one of my favorite Spock lines, in times of trouble: "I've been dead before." It always gives me a kick.]
