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Best Christmas gift

To the Journal editor:

The best gift I’ve ever received was given to me from many people on Christmas morning. That gift was the saving of my life. Here’s how it began.

While fashioning gifts in my workshop, I had a major heart attack. There was no warning. We reached the hospital in minutes. A cardiac rapid response team was alongside me soon after arrival.

I was only half conscious but I could hear them instructing me and describing their actions: the defibrillator, the intravenous lines, the catheter, the stent.

There was an overall impression of competency around me. Not many people get to see the view from my side of the action. Just minutes later, I was in an operating room with a doctor threading a stent into an impossibly small artery.

That’s all I remember until I woke up in an intensive care unit. The experience in the emergency room and subsequent days of recovery left me stunned, in a good way.

Nearly 50 people, from doctors to housekeeping, were there to help me succeed. They are my heroes and heroines.

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