The Grim Reaper once chased me across Arkansas in a dark rainstorm into the arms of an angel.

I was driving alone to Atlanta to deliver my old car to a daughter in college. (Why does she always go to schools so far away?) I felt a familiar pain between my ribs.

I have a hypercoagulability condition, meaning my blood tends to clot when it’s still in my veins. Then the clots travel to my lungs, my heart or my eyes (so far). I report this condition by way of background and not for sympathy, of which I need, want and deserve none. (After all, the clots have not yet landed in any truly important organs.)

The sharp pain between my ribs told me I had another set of blood clots in my lungs. So in the middle of the night in a horrific lightning storm, I set out for a reputable hospital in Little Rock about 110 miles away.

Dawn broke as I pulled into the hospital. The low-fuel light had been on for 62 miles. Each breath felt like Continue reading →