My Remarkable Journey by Larry King

Author:Larry King [KING, LARRY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO013000
ISBN: 9781602861022
Publisher: Weinstein Books
Published: 2009-05-18T16:00:00+00:00

Heart Disease Cured

Larry King Doesn’t Need Surgery

There is no way to describe how scared I was. If you’d told me I could avoid the surgery and live comfortably for the rest of my life by swearing off sex, I’d be celibate to this day. But there were no such options. I was stopping to catch my breath as I walked through airports and taking nitroglycerin tablets for the chest pain.

If I was going to die, I wanted to die in New York. Two months after the stress test, the surgery was scheduled with Dr. Isom at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Many people who’d had the surgery called to tell me it would be a snap. But as the weekend approached, as friends offered humor and support, the only thing I could think was that it would be the last time I’d talk to them.

On my final night on the radio before I went to New York for the surgery, the columnist Art Buchwald was the guest. He told me that for some reason he always ended up going on shows when the host had little time left. Then he brought up his wife’s emergency bypass surgery. “Let’s be honest,” he said, “no one cares about your surgery. Your friends will listen to you for about three minutes. Acquaintances? Two minutes. Strangers? One… unless you have a quintuple bypass.”

The next day, a Friday, Jon Miller drove down from Baltimore, where he was announcing the Orioles, picked me up in Washington, and drove me to New York. I don’t think I heard a word he said during the entire trip. The only thing going through my mind was: They’re going to open up my chest. They’re going to open up my chest. The surgery was set for Tuesday. I had one last weekend.

I stayed with my brother and his wife, Ellen, in New York. Once, when he was a newborn, I plotted to throw Marty out of a window because he was stealing my parents’ attention. As we grew up, our differences became more apparent. I spent money as soon as I got it. Marty was very frugal and hid his money all over our apartment. One day, I found two quarters and took them. When he discovered the loss, he went ballistic.

“I’ll give you quarters,” my mother told him.

“No, that’s not the point. It’s the principle. He stole the money!”

“It’s not stealing. You’re brothers!”

“It’s stealing! He should go to jail!”

We drifted apart when I moved to Miami. But there’s a closeness that comes when you look at your brother as if it’s the last weekend you’ll have together. We became even closer six months later when Marty found out he needed the same surgery. Must have been the genes.

I was scheduled to check in at the hospital on Sunday night. Now, with insurance companies in control, you check in on the same day. Sunday arrived, a dark, rainy November day that looked like death.

That afternoon, Bob Woolf joined my brother, my sister-in-law, and me as we went to the hospital.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.