A heart attack doesn’t feel like you think it should.

All those Hollywood scenes where someone clutches their chest and drops to the ground; George Jefferson exclaiming “Louise! I’m a coming!” … it isn’t any of that.

I pushed back from my desk. I’d just gotten off a call about the ownership of some software a client was developing. And, my chest hurt.

It didn’t hurt a lot. It felt like the day after “chest day” at the gym. A dull ache in the muscle. More on the left than the right. I stretched my arms and flexed them. I rubbed my pectoral.

I thought “that’s weird, yesterday was leg day.”

I tried to focus on answering email, but the ache was persistent. Not bad, but I just could not get seated comfortably. I got up thinking I would take some ibuprofen and went from my third floor home office to the master bathroom on the second floor.

When I got there, I stopped to think. Twice in the prior six months, after particularly hard workouts, when I had come home and showered, I had more significant chest pain. It had scared me, but I told no one. Barely even admitted it to myself, really.

My mother died from heart failure and I was familiar with angina and cardiac events. So those last two times I had chewed up some baby aspirin. Good news and bad news was that in each case the pain had abated pretty quickly.

This wasn’t that. There had been no vigorous workout. I wasn’t still flushed from my time at the gym. Just a mildly stressful phone call, and now a sore chest that wouldn’t quit.

Our master bath was fancy then. I was earning a very good living. Three types of Italian marble, a mini chandelier and Victorian sconces reflected along with me as I stared at myself in the mirror.

Both the north and south wall had identical mirrors, placed to catch one another. What I saw in that tunnel of endless reflections was a mildly overweight man in his early forties, clean shaven with salt and pepper hair, although the pepper was brown and red and blonde rather than black. My multi-colored hair is matched by eyes that are speckled with blue and hazel and brown. Genetically, I’m a Caucasian mutt.

I stand a little over five eight and am built, as I lovingly describe myself, like a brick shithouse. In college I played rugby and my nickname was “tank.” I am not fast or lithe, but I go through most obstacles with a combination of strength and tenacity. I am a bulldozer of a man. A tiny, intense bulldozer.

As I stared at myself now, my face looked grey and I could feel myself beginning to perspire. A cold sweat - a flop sweat - was developing on my brow and the back of my neck.

Riffing through the pill draw searching for the ibuprofen, I saw the baby aspirin. That is when I made a decision then that a nurse would later tell me saved my life - although I am far from certain I did not die that day.

On impulse, I shook out 4 baby aspirin (I usually took one) and chewed them up. They were bitter and I grimaced before chasing them with a glass of water.

I went to the bedroom to lie down and wait for them to take effect. I noted the time. I might have set a timer - I no longer recall.

This time, though, there was no quick relief. It wasn’t hot, but I began to perspire profusely. Five minutes elapsed. Then ten. Then fifteen. My pec ached. I couldn’t quite seem to catch my breath.

My kids were home, as was the cleaning woman who also served as a nanny. I wondered if I should call an ambulance but decided it would upset the kids. I have a boy and a girl. They would have been around 7 and 9 then. Old enough to understand the seriousness of an ambulance call and get freaked out by it.

If I’m telling the truth, I was as much still in denial about the situation as I was worried about the kids. So I sat there, thinking about the work I still had to do, feeling like death, but not wanting to upset anyone.

I lived in the city then. The hospital was two or three miles from my house, along a route that didn’t have much traffic. I thought “I’ll just drive over by the hospital, so if this gets worse, I’ll be right there.” There are some coffee shops near the hospital. In the back of my mind I was thinking I would go to one of those.