I always had a ‘jones’ for basketball and was confident that I could play into at least my late sixties, early seventies. I’d seen others do it and figured I could do it too. Aerobically I was in excellent shape, often running down the court faster than guys who were twenty or thirty years younger. Not only was I keeping fit, but I enjoyed the social aspect of the game.
And I had a decent shot.
That shot gave me value and in pickup basketball you don’t want to be a liability and have other players avoid wanting to be your teammate.
During the game there was never a mystery as to where I’d be if you needed me. I lived in either corner of the floor and my shot from there was what kept me from being useless since I wasn’t strong enough to do any damage down low. I just loved playing the game, as did every other player with an hour lunch break to spare. I played 3 or 4 times a week and made plenty of friends over the years and that spilled over to golf outings and beer gatherings.
One day in March of 2014 at the YMCA I found myself, as usual, in the corner launching a successful shot and turning to go back down the court on defense. I took about three steps and thought, ‘I don’t feel well’ and by the time I got to the entrance of the court I was convinced I had to sit down so I walked off the court, found a chair and plopped myself down. Since I trailed the play, the other players were unaware that I’d taken an unscheduled pitstop.
I couldn’t get a breath, which was unusual, and sat on the chair, sweating bullets and confused with my condition. Slowly my body told me to lie down, and I slipped on to the floor from the chair. All the time I kept my eyes closed, what I now suspect was something akin to an ostrich with its head buried in the sand.
Eventually someone realized they were a man short and found me lying on the floor gasping for breath, generating a cold sweat, my eyes shut and, as they told me later, I was gray.
“What’s wrong Marty?” Kneeling over me, my teammate asked it a couple of times and…
All I could say with halting breaths was “I…don’t…know”. In the midst of my body shutting down “I don’t know” was all I could get out. I was lost in a catastrophic fog and couldn’t make sense of what was happening to me.
Now, I’m betting that the majority of those reading this so far have already guessed that I was having a heart attack. And even if it wasn’t a heart attack it was clear that something was majorly wrong. Later I thought, when had any of the players ever seen me take a lounge break on the floor in the middle of a game and why wouldn’t they at least ask for help? Help was 20 feet away in a staffed gym office that faced the court.
Finally, my friend stood up and another buddy asked him what was wrong with me. “I don’t know,” was all he could say to the guy.
I heard the group make arrangements for my replacement and that guy stepped over my soon to be dead body and the game continued. Rational people would have made sure I was tended to but there was a code. Yes, an unwritten code known only to those court dwellers and time managers. I experienced this code from Oregon to New York so even though no one talked about it, everyone adhered to it. On the surface it makes no sense and I believe that responses to my predicament would, in the normal world, be one of expediency and somebody would at least get help before going back to the game…except for the code.
Excuse the loose interpretation but the code is roughly as follows:
Noon ball and, for that matter, any pickup basketball game can NOT be interrupted by time or circumstance.
For example, when I was about 30 years old, we got gym time at a grade school. We were in the middle of play when I thought I felt the ball or something hit me in the heel but when I spun around to find the cause I realized the play and ball were in front of me not behind. There was no one behind me, also I couldn’t seem to step forward. There was no pain but I was stuck in place. I explained to the other players that I couldn’t move.
Later we discovered I had torn my Achilles tendon.
But their immediate answer to the problem was have two guys pick me up and place me on the sideline. Since no one wanted to quit playing to take me to the hospital they waited until our gym time was over and then someone dropped me off at emergency and called my girlfriend.
Over the many years I had 2 Achilles ruptures, 3 meniscus tears and so many bruises, broken bones, external hemorrhages and ankle sprains I lost count. It was the accepted cost of the game.
But on this particular day at the YMCA, I was lying there dying and couldn’t do anything about it.
From across the room was a small kitchenette, adjacent to the court, where Y staff went for lunch breaks. What saved me was the YMCA manager’s assistant who, from all the way across the room, realized that something didn’t look right and she went to alert the staff. Quickly they were standing around me with a defibrillator and about to apply the paddles except the machine said ‘Do not shock’. My heart had not totally stopped and was struggling to keep me alive.
My friends kept playing.
Finally, the ambulance arrived. As the crew stood around me deciding what to do I said, “You’re…standing,..on…my…finger.”
“Oh, sorry…” Then she said, “What hospital do you want us to take you to?”
My stress level was so high and my confusion getting the better of me I suddenly couldn’t remember the names of any of the hospitals. And, besides, wasn’t it the job of the ambulance crew to know where to take me? After a couple of clues, she said, “You mean, Dickenson?”
“Yes,” I croaked out.
“No, sorry, can’t take you there.”
Oh, god…
“How about Stonewell?” she asked.
“Yes…for god’s sake, I…can’t breathe.”
I still hadn’t opened my eyes and didn’t until I was lying in emergency and saw my wife. She later told me that a doctor had come out to the waiting room and announced that I had suffered the “widowmaker.”
Really??? He actually said that to a loved one? I later learned that the widowmaker was doctor slang for a heart attack of the LAD, left anterior descending artery, the largest supplier of blood to the body.
Nurses finally whisked me off to surgery and the next thing I knew I was awake in my room. The surgeon had come in to check on me and explain the outcome.
Good news: Because I was in such good aroebic shape I survived a high mortality heart attack. They placed a stent and opened the artery.
Bad news: Because it had been over an hour getting me to the hospital, there was permanent damage. If I’d only gotten to the hospital sooner.
The negligent party, my basketball buddies, filed into my hospital room later to pay their respects and thank their lucky stars for not having to attend my funeral. At first, I was all forgiving, having been a victim of the code for many years. We all laughed and blah, blah, blah.
Boys will be boys.
But overtime, I realized that I could have easily been transported to the hospital without any long-term damage if it were not for my thoughtless playmates. I stopped all communication with them. One continued calling me, wondering if I was mad at them but I never returned the calls. I thought it was a stupid fucking question and never spoke to them again. I decided that friendship would have to include saving a friend’s life and if that meant surrendering 5 minutes of precious basketball time then so be it. If my so-called friends couldn’t see that then I decided they were out of my life.
I hope they had fun that day because I have spent the last 12 years (so far) paying for those 5 minutes.
So, I reinterpreted the code and it goes like this…
F**k the code.
