SHOPPING FOR A HEART SURGEON, BY MATTHEW LUCAS BECKETT

I couldn't believe it, I was only forty-one. But there was no arguing with the excruciating pain in my chest. I was having a heart attack! A Heart Attack, at forty-one.
The emergency vehicle rushed me to the hospital where I was stabilized and the immediate danger averted. However, that was just the beginning of my troubles and where my story really begins and gets interesting, and complicated.
“You have a rare deformity of the heart,” my doctor told my wife Jenny and I. “If not corrected, there will be more heart attacks and eventually one will be fatal. However, it is such a rare condition, there are few surgeons able to do this operation, and I don't even know of one to recommend. But you should start shopping for one as soon as you get out of the hospital, because if this condition isn't corrected soon, it will prove fatal, no ifs, ands or buts about it.”
A week and two days later, when I was discharged from the hospital, Jenny and I did as my doctor had suggested and went to the Health Care Mall on 3rd Avenue to shop for a surgeon who could correct my heart condition.
“We'll try the bottom floor first,” I suggested, since things on it were the least expensive, and we were far from wealthy.
“Although we do have Insurance,” Jenny pointed out. “But I agree let's try the first floor first.”

We searched the shops until we found one that indicated it dealt with heart problems. However, once we explained my problem to the merchant surgeon, he sighed.
“That type of surgery is far beyond my ability sir, I'm afraid. In fact, I've never even heard of this condition. How did you say it again?”
That was the response we got from all of the heart merchants on the first floor, except that a few could pronounce my condition. The last one we talked with was one of these, and said that as far as he knew no one below the thirteenth floor of the Health Care Mall was even half qualified to perform the kind of surgery needed to correct my exact problem.
We left his shop discouraged and a bit distraught. “Our insurance plan will only cover things through the tenth floor, and. . .” I began, but then felt that pain in my chest again and knew no more.

When I opened my eyes, I was back in the hospital, and my doctor and Jenny were at my side. I could see the tear tracks on Jenny's cheeks and I knew the news was not good. A nod from my doctor when I glanced his way confirmed this.
'Without this operation, you've got another month at most,” he said, clearly holding back tears himself, for he had been my doctor since I turned eighteen.
“The Insurance company said shop where permitted only, and I've been on every bit of floors two trough ten in the past two days, and none of the heart surgeons/merchants there are qualified to do the operation you need, dear,” said Jenny, starting to sob even as she spoke.
“I did meet a surgeon from the thirteenth floor yesterday,” my doctor said. “And she said that she is qualified, and if we can sneak you up to her floor, she'd do it on her own dime, but every time we tried to get you up there during the week you've been out, the elevator froze and your insurance card went black and buzzed every time we tried to go higher than the tenth floor, and this surgeon says the equipment she needs to do the surgery can't be brought to a lower floor because the same thing happened when she tried that several times before.”
“So to live I need to reach the thirteenth floor of the Health Care Mall” I say. “But our insurance won't pay for anything higher than the tenth floor of the mall.”
“That sums it up,” said the doctor. “And believe me we've all tried to reason with them, but they say anything above the tenth floor is not a cost effective way to manage your health.”
“And my dying would be a cost effective way to manage my health,” I say sarcastically. “Well, I suppose for them it is cost effective. . .”
“But it rather sucks for the human element,” Jenny screams.
“The human element doesn't matter to them,” says my doctor. “Money is king.”
“Well,” I say. “Let's get the kids down here, I want to see them one last time before. . .”
Before I can finish, Jenny bursts into tears and runs from the room.
We try sneaking past the money security lock beyond the tenth floor a few more times over the next couple of weeks, but are always thwarted, and when the card threatens to terminate all coverage for both of us if we try again, we stop at my insistence, for Jenny will still need coverage when I'm gone., even though she says if they let me die she'll tear up her card and never use them again. So shopping for a heart surgeon qualified to fix my heart ends in failure, and as I type these words I feel a pain my chest worse than any before and then everything goes black.