Level Orange

After hearing the doctor’s explanation that he found no signs of damage or blockage in my heart, I was nothing less than bewildered.

How could this be?

I heard what he said and at the time, it sounded like wonderful news. News that I’d been waiting to hear for over five years. But it still didn’t make sense. If I didn’t have a heart attack all those years ago, then what did happen to me? Why was I admitted to two hospitals and prescribed medication which I would have to take for the rest of my life? How can all of this just turn around?

For some reason, not only was I completely puzzled, but I also felt betrayed. How could the truth that I’d known for the last five years be false?

Of course, I thought of all of these things after I hung up the phone. For some reason, not only was I completely puzzled, but I also felt betrayed. How could the truth that I’d known for the last five years be false? You know, at the time, I couldn’t come up with any better an explanation for what happened to me, so I took the words of the doctors. They are professionals, we put our trust in them to draw the right conclusions and make the right decisions. Once I realized that, I never really doubted what they told me. It became important for me to hold on to what had happened to me, and turn it into something useful.

For a while, there was the depression, and it was a tough road to walk. Then came the moment when I discovered that I had to make the most of things, because they could be gone in an instant. That led me to a whole new perspective on life. A more take-charge, get-out-there-and-do-something attitude started to grow within me. And look at what it led to…my beautiful wife and my precious son. Not to mention a whole slew of other small accomplishments.

That whole ordeal really changed my life.

And now? It was bullshit? Or is the new doctor that examined me off his rocker somehow? There has to be an explanation, it just can’t be that simple. I know I didn’t imagine it all. Something went wrong, and someone’s giving me false information. I love the idea of second opinions, but damnit if I ain’t considering getting a third.

It’s odd enough to make me angry, and drastic enough to make me weep. I thought I had a new reason for living, a second chance at life, and all it ever was was someone’s mistake? That just makes my stomach turn…

With the two biggest movies to hit theaters this year The Matrix: Reloaded and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, there’s something to be said for the current fixation with death and the value of life in modern society. Not because these films are violent, nor because they probably both show more rounds fired than the entire war in Iraq, but because of their ultimate outcomes. It’s in their bleak outlook of the future of our world that we see the real truth.

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