Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
How It Happened
It was a sunny afternoon (not unusual in
Los Angeles). I was in my room, lounging in a
chair, having a manicure (ah, the lifestyles of the
rich and famous). My wife, Anne, insists that I
have a regular manicure. She cannot bear the
sight of my peasant hands if they are not properly
manicured.
I like this room. I do all my work here-writing,
studying scripts, reading a book, watching television,
and dreaming. I gave up my office long ago.
This is where I exist. I turn the phone off-that
shrill siren song of the outside world. The only
constant visitors to my lair are my dogs, Danny
and Foxy, both Labradors. I couldn't pet them now
because my hands were being beautified.
I was feeling pretty good since the surgery on
my back, ready to make a golf date, dreaming
about hitting a long drive on the fourth hole. Suddenly,
I felt a peculiar sensation in my right
cheek.
It was as if a pointed object had drawn a line
from my temple, made a half circle on my cheek,
and stopped. I felt no pain, but when I tried to
describe it to Rose, my manicurist, I couldn't talk.
What came out was gibberish. What was happening
to me? Rose had been a nurse in Israel and
knew immediately that I was having a stroke. She
ran to the kitchen to ask Concha, our cook, to call
Anne, who was at that moment playing bridge with
Barbara Sinatra.
An alarmed Concha rushed into the room and
began slapping my face, intoning Mexican prayers.
I tried to tell her that slapping was not helping me.
But all that came out of my mouth was babble. She
kept slapping. I was bewildered.
Anne hurried home and got on the phone to
my doctor. Dr. Rick Gold told her, "If he can
move, drive him to the hospital -- an ambulance
would take too long."
I looked at Anne. There was fear in her eyes,
but she tried to reassure me in a matter-of-fact
way. I did not try to speak. My mind was in turmoil.
I still did not know what had happened to
me. Now everybody was being very calm, too
calm. It bothered me. Before being led to the car, I
looked at my hands. I turned to Rose: "Hey, you
didn't finish my nails." My joke fell flat -- no one
understood me.
When we arrived at a private entrance, two
doctors were waiting at the end of a long hall.
They were relieved to see me walk. This indicated
that I had no paralysis in my legs.
Dr. Gold asked, "Show me your teeth." I bared
my teeth as I have done in so many of my movies.
What I did not know was that my right lip drooped
down, covering my teeth at that side of my mouth.
It was a sure sign of stroke. I could understand
everything the doctor said, but I could not talk.
They quickly sent me for a CAT scan. A CAT
scan uses X rays; an MRI, which uses magnetic
resonance, was out of the question because of my
pacemaker, inserted into my chest six years earlier.
(But that's another story.) When they slid me
into that enclosed channel, I was frightened.
"What's happening to me?" The beating of my
heart seemed louder than the mechanical buzz of
the machine taking pictures of my brain. I shut my
eyes in the darkness.
"Am I going to die?" I just recovered from an
operation on my back!
They rolled me back into the light. I preferred
the darkness. I wanted to obliterate everything.
They tried to calm me down: "With exercise and
speech therapy, you will regain your speech."
They put me on a gurney, assuring me, "It's just a
minor stroke."
What the hell are they talking about? A
stroke! I just came out of this same hospital a
month ago, after enduring an operation on my
back from my helicopter crash. Strokes are for
elderly people, with slurred speech, moving about
in walkers or wheelchairs. I was only eighty; how
can a stroke happen to me? Does that mean there
will be no golf tomorrow?
Later, I learned that I had suffered a brain
attack. That's what strokes really are. Brain
attacks are the third leading cause of death in
America. Every minute someone in the United
States has a stroke. That means more than
700,000 people each year. While you read this
page, two more people will have a stroke. Thirty
percent of those who suffer strokes are under the
age of sixty-five. What chance do I have, I'm
nearly twenty years older?
As I was wheeled down the hospital corridor, I
looked up at the ceiling lights passing over me.
Didn't I see this scene in a movie? The doctor's
words echoed in my mind: It's just a minor stroke.
Yeah, minor to you, major to me. I was frightened.
In my hospital room, Dr. Gold, our regular
internist, tried to lessen my fears. "Kirk, you did a
picture with Janet Leigh."
"The Vikings," I muttered.
"Tell me." And he leaned closer to me. "Are
those big boobs real?"
"What?" I couldn't believe it!
"Are those beautiful boobs real?"
" 'Course!"
"How do you know, did you ever touch them?
Did you see them?"
I shook my head in exasperation. "Real!"
"Boy, I always had a crush on her."
And so the conversation continued. I never
told Janet that the doctor used the image of her
breasts to take my mind off my problems.
For twenty hours, I was forbidden to eat or
drink until the doctors were convinced that my
esophagus was not impaired and that I could swallow.
Finally, they gave me something to drink and
watched me intensely. They did not want me to
choke to death. That thought sent shivers through
my body. Death! Yesterday I was ready to play
golf. Now what?
