In the ER

 I am wheeled to a room in the ER ward. There is a little too much attention being paid to me. I am usually an attention whore but not in this instance.
 2 Indian doctors,one woman and one man, enter my room after a cadre of people gathering vitals and information. She does the majority of the talking. I find myself listening to a doctors advice for probably the first time in my life. Did I mention that I am terrified?
 Flashback to March 1997, I am in the same hospital. I am in the throes of a major heart attack. And yet I do not hear the doctors as clear as I am hearing them now.
 When I had the miocardial infarction, I knew I could get past it. It was all physical. Eat better,live better and watch for the signs.
 This is different. I have never been a very physically imposing person. I have never had great atheletic abilities. I have always relied on my brain. I have always been smart. I have always had a quick comedic wit. This episode with the stroke is affecting the one thing that I have always prided myself on. My intelligence is being threatened and I don't like it one bit.
 Sometimes doctors don't appreciate comedy in the face of crisis.But that is how I deal with everything in my life. I laid there and listened. I wasn't happy with what I was hearing.
 I was scheduled for several tests over the next 4 hrs. MRI on my brain ( I warned them that my brain was not normal), sonogram on my heart and echogram on my carotid arteries.
 And then the 4 words that I hate to hear most while at the hospital, "You are being admitted!"