Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres thanked an unlikely ally in the JCPenney Penney controversy on Wednesday: Bill O’Reilly. REUTERS

Ellen DeGeneres had a heart scare on Monday morning, but that didn't stop the comedian from filming her popular talk show.

Hours after paramedics responded to a 911 call from the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank, the 53-year-old was back to normal and ready to go.

During her opening monologue, DeGeneres threw in a few jokes about her health scare.

You know I like to tell you what's going on with my life . . . because TMZ is also telling you what's going on with my life, so I'll tell you about the same time, she told her studio audience.

In the middle of a producers' meeting on Monday morning, an employee of The Ellen DeGeneres Show made a 911 call after the host complained of chest pains, TMZ first reported.

DeGeneres joked about everything from the paramedics' dramatic arrival to the presence of cats on her chest the night before. Here are some highlights from her five-minute monologue, health scare edition:

On the arrival of the medical crew:

The paramedics were strippers that I had called. That's how the [TMZ] rumors got started, she said.

I called the paramedics here . . . about 50 fire trucks and ambulances, like one marching band short of a parade showed up outside my office, DeGeneres added.

They come in with an axe, break the door down. It was open. I don't know why they did that . . . they came in, asked me all the questions: How you feeling? When did it start? Family history? Can I get tickets to the 'Twelve Days?' DeGeneres said (referring to the show's annual Twelve Days of giveaway series).

On her chest pains, which were first experienced at her Beverly Hills home on Sunday night:

I woke up in the middle of the night and I was feeling a tightness at my chest, like something was heavy on my chest. And it was a cat. So I moved it. And then I still felt the tightness, and it was another cat under that cat. There were two cats under my chest, according to DeGeneres.

On her new heart:

It's fine. I have a baboon heart that I had put in earlier . . . that's not true, she joked.

The Ellen DeGeneres Show, heart scare edition, airs on Tuesday.