[Full House]

Read along with audio narration

I’ve always liked sitcoms. It doesn’t matter what ridiculous antics the characters get into, by the time the credits roll, they learn from tragedies large or small. The world keeps turning. In the starch-pressed, neatly-packaged multiverse of Nick at Night, the dial always resets. No problem is permanent for Jessy, Joey, D.J., or Danny. They always make it back home, reflect, and hug it out. The House always stays Full. 
I lifted the plastic cereal bowl to slurp the luke-warm milk from my long-forgotten breakfast. I'm 20-minutes into the latest episode of my season-spanning Full House binge-watch. For the life of me, I couldn't remember how Joey was supposed to wind his way out of this particular self-inflicted predicament. 
Before I’d finished unceremoniously harvesting the emulsified sugar from the bottom of the bowl, my arm shot pain to my fingertips. My lungs stuttered like an engine struggling to turn over. My chest threatened to burst wide open as if my heart insisted on occupying the other side of the couch, equally eager to find out how this episode ends.
Troubling developments, to be sure. But I had not yet finished my Frosted Flakes, and I was far too invested in Joey’s calamity to pay any mind to my own. After all, there was only five minutes left before credits rolled and all of life's problems got resolved.
Stubborn as I was - I was in too much pain to open my eyes. I had to put down that bowl of Frosted Flakes - I was in too much pain to unclench my jaw. 
"Breathe," I reminded myself. It was what my mom always said to me whenever something was going wrong. "Breathe."
I didn’t exactly know what was happening, but I gained a sneaking suspicion that if I ever wanted to find out what happened to Joey, I’d probably have to stream the end of the episode over hospital WiFi.
With the same self-assuredness I saw from Joey just minutes earlier, I debated my next steps with a calm that ran completely counter to the gravity of my faltering faculties. I very intentionally lifted my arm from the couch to reach for my phone next to the cereal bowl, and sheepishly typed a “9” and then a “1,” and then . . . 
I opened Google maps and searched: “Hospitals near me.”
With no memory of how I’d arrived in the driver’s seat, I found myself swerving wildly, one hand white-knuckle to the steering wheel, the other clutching my chest like the lever of a hand grenade in an effort to keep it from exploding between my fingers. I was lucky to force my eyes open before plowing into a stop sign and then a rear bumper. While waiting at a red light, my brain tripped a breaker and shut down. Power just went out. Car horns blared from the dark to shake me awake, haunting the edges of my awareness like a tortured laugh track. 
"Breathe."
I prevented any more commercial breaks of unconsciousness, and eventually, was relieved to find that I’d made it. I finally pulled up to the hospital… and I promptly drove right by it, because as luck would have it, I noticed a Care Now Clinic right next door! Sure, they mostly do flu shots, but a doctor’s a doctor, right? Why go to a Target when they’ve got the same thing at a Dollar Tree? Save my life while saving cash. Truly, a win-win.
I stumbled into the overly-lit lobby of this “minute clinic,” but at first glance it seemed like the people of this waiting room had been chained to their seats for all of eternity. They each carried the cow-eyed gaze of a trapped soul longing to escape. That was the look of the receptionist too, who handed me a clipboard and instructed me to fill out eight pages of my medical history. I only managed to fill out one line.
“What’s the reason for your visit today?”
I gave it my best guess: Heart attack… Question mark?
I was surprised to find my own handwriting barely recognizable. Before the ink was dry, the clipboard fell to the floor with an offensive clang as my heart hit play on another episode. My body involuntarily unleashed what can only be described as a “death yowl” - some strange mix of a dog’s yelp and a bear’s growl.
The clerk said, “sir, can you please keep it down?”
Oh, I’m sorry. I’ll just die quieter then, I thought. With no breath in my lungs, I couldn’t sling my sass at this woman verbally, but she gathered my meaning with a look.
She picked up the phone, and within minutes, they carried me out on a stretcher, carried me beyond the doors, and carried me into an ambulance! Oh my God, I was trying to avoid exactly this. The EMT didn’t even have time to slip the IV needle into my vein before we’d made our $5,000 odyssey across the parking lot to my original destination. I couldn't tell whether this was unfolding as a tragedy or a comedy.
Please, I thought as they began unloading me into the emergency bay, at least let this hospital have good WiFi.
Let me pause to calm your fear - you’ll be glad to know that the hospital had excellent WiFi. Several days and entire seasons of streamed television passed with no clear answers on why my heart decided to go on strike. After my third successive heart attack within seventy-two hours, I gradually came to realize that this was not a medical TV drama, and there might not be miracle diagnosis from an eccentric-but-handsome-made-for-TV doctor.
One thing you don’t learn from Grey’s Anatomy is that when the doctors can’t figure out why you’re dying, they don't like to admit it. The only honest information I gathered came from my night nurse, Nikki. Or, as she introduced herself, “it’s really Nicole, but I go by Nikki because I feel like Nikki is more fun.” Night nurse Nikki couldn’t withhold information if she tried. The late shift was lonely, I suppose. Each night, she smacked cinnamon-scented bubblegum between every syllable while detailing her day’s pressing dilemmas.
“I just don’t know who to invite to Cancun, you know? It’s not about the place, it’s about who’s with you. Tricia would be more fun, but Rabecca has money. Oh, about a third of your heart tissue’s dead and the doctor said you’ve got about a 50-50 chance. Paige and I don’t really get along anymore, so that’s easy, but I don’t think I could go anywhere without Chloe.”
My eyes lost focus. I got scared that my heart was racing. 
"Breathe."
I’d never given thought to dying before. Not really. What an inconvenience it would be for everyone. How long would it take for my brother to figure out I’d "borrowed" his video games? Who would take care of my cat? How would my mom - ?
My mom. She was in my hospital room, asleep in the tacky pleather chair, head sloping towards the reading she’d been occupied with over obscure reasons for sudden heart failures. Actually, she’d been there from the start, and she'd fought with the nurses each night to let her stay. It’s not that I hadn’t noticed her, but I’d never before appreciated that she’d always been there. Always.
“I love you mom,” were words I didn't know if I'd really said before. But I said them then.
“I love you mom,” I said a little louder. Loud enough to wake her up. Loud enough to mean it. Loud enough to try to make up for living twenty-two years without ever really having said it.
She lifted her head, face awash with her usual worry. “I love you too, sweetie. Is everything alright? Can I get you anything?”
I took a breath. “Everything’s fine,” I said behind a curtain of calm. For the first time since I’d been admitted to the ICU, I actually meant it. Despite the circumstances, I’d never been afraid, and now I knew why. As a wise nurse once said, "It's not about the place, it’s about who’s with you."
I glanced up at the TV monitors dangling above a sea of medical charts. It was night, but the screen light blanketed the room, full of silhouetted flowers and notes from friends and family. 

“Mom, do you want to watch another episode with me?”

[Credits roll]