What was it like for you?

No where in the rehabilative process has any professional ever
addressed or questioned the emotinal impact my first MI had on me.
I'm not addressing the environment after MI (life adaptations etc) but
the impact and emotions one goes thru actually during the event. The
closest I came to being able to discuss it was during 1 session in
cardiac rehab where a few of us gathered almost hidden from the rest
to discuss it in hushed tones. It was quite odd I thought. Having
lost so many in my family to MI, when I had mine, there was the
question of fear to be addressed while the MI was in process. I am
not talking about the near death experience per se but rather how one
copes during the event and possibility of death. I kept a diary for
a couple months after mine which I still read, and the words and
feelings I still savor. Admittedly however with the passage of time
the sharpness of my senses as it relates to what happened, dims.
Overall the event was so large to me the only way I could describe it
to "outsiders" emotinally is that it was like a bunch of those dolls
that fit inside one another, and that there are layers and layers one
experiences in recollecting the event. During the event I felt I
could live or die and what was to be was to be. The speed of onset
offerd a great deal of immediate and intimate (and oddly aloof!)
observation ability! I felt concern for my loved ones (a feeling that
has brought me a great deal of peace of mind about when my other
family members passed a way to MI). Curiously I felt fear only after
the ambulance got to the hospital. I am not really exploring a the
"near death expereince" with this question but wondered how others
dealt and coped with it mentally while it was occuring. It also
strikes me as curious that along the path to recovery none of this is
rarely openly discussed. I would be interested in what others have to
say.