I’ve experienced a “heart incident.” Politicians sometimes use that sort of imprecise language because their media advisers warn them that admitting to having had a “heart attack” would cost them votes. But in my case, the ambiguity of the word “incident” is warranted by the facts, or lack of them. I simply do not know, nor do my doctors know, why I experienced crushing chest pain that dropped me to the floor and left me ashen, clammy, and gasping for breath. During my subsequent overnight hospital stay, blood tests did not find the enzymes associated with heart damage; a stress test showed me to have a normal ECG reading and a heart that could handle exertion well; and nuclear imaging found nothing out of the ordinary about my heart. So what had I experienced, if not a heart attack?

One possibility is that I had a coronary artery spasm. Of the many reasons why an artery may clinch itself and restrict blood flow to the heart, the one that caught my attention was stress. I can’t help but wonder if my constant worrying about the economy, environmental degradation, climate change, the ongoing mass extinction, and all the other crises facing mankind created enough stress within me to cause my heart incident. Is my dystopian point of view a significant coronary risk factor? Is truthalyzer.com a hazard to my health and that of my readers?

Okay, that’s probably a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy . . . but just in case, consider yourself warned. Browse the rest of this website at your own risk.

UPDATE: The latest guess by my medical caregivers is that I experienced an esophageal spasm. I say “guess,” because that is the state of the art in much of 21st century medicine. Like TV’s Dr. House, diagnosticians run tests, hazard a guess, run more tests, make another guess, and so on, until the patient either dies or recovers. In addition to the tests, of course, they administer drugs and increasingly invasive procedures, which may or may not prove the latest diagnosis and may or may not inflict harm to the patient. My wife and daughter have played this game with doctors who tried to guess what was wrong with them in past years. Now it’s my turn, and I still don’t know what I experienced — coronary artery spasm, esophageal spasm, or whatever — and neither do my doctors, but in the meantime, I had another one, less severe than the first.

UPDATE2: Seven months after what was initially thought to be a heart incident and later thought to be an esophageal spasm, and following several subsequent incidents, which baffled the diagnosticians with whom I consulted, a simple ultrasound has conclusively identified my problem. Gallstones. Lots of them. My gallbladder will have to be removed. I’m told I will not miss it. As I mentioned above, my case has been a lot like TV’s Dr. House. Diagnosticians run tests, hazard a guess, run more tests, make another guess, and so on, until the patient either dies or recovers. In my case, the bad news is that it took a lot longer than an hour to solve the case, but the good news is that there were no commercials.

UPDATE3: What I said above about the confused state of medicine was directed at the diagnostic phase, not the laparoscopic surgery that resolved my problem. Twenty years ago, gallbladder surgery required cutting a wide swath of abdomen to access and excise the organ, and patients typically spent several days in the hospital and weeks at home recovering. My experience was nothing like that. I was admitted in the morning, discharged that afternoon, and was able to shuffle around the house, have a light meal, resume blogging, and pursue other activities that evening. I took a walk around the block the next day and was pretty much back to normal a couple of days after that. Laparoscopic surgery entails making a few small incisions, inserting long, slender instruments, including a camera and light, and then viewing a monitor to guide the hands and complete the operation. Amazing.