“We cannot, not tell Jonny about this,” I said to Brodie while still in the receiving area of the Hamilton General Hospital Emergency Room.
“I’ll take care of all of that,” Brodie said. “You just take it easy.”
“Thank you,” I said between grimaces. My main concern wasn’t about telling Jonny what was happening, but when to do it.
“He’s as stressed out as I am,” I told Brodie, “with completing a technical report and prepping for the fourth 2nd Class exam next week.
“It’s just after ten o’clock, he’s still awake studying. I know him, if we call now he’ll make that seven hour drive down here tonight, in the dark,” a fact that terrified me as 85 KM/53 MI of the road he’d travel was undergoing major expansion leaving the two lane highway through that remote region a veritable minefield and an arduous drive even in broad daylight.
“Text him,” I went on, “but don’t send the message until after 11:30 [p.m.]. That way he won’t see it until morning after a good night’s sleep and he can make the trip during the day.”
Not Dead Yet
It’s true hospitals have the best drugs. Despite my having asked Brodie the night before to text Jon and advise him of my situation, I awoke early Tuesday morning somewhere in the bowels of Hamilton General Hospital having completely forgotten about that conversation. Sometime around 6:30 on the morning of Tuesday, April 17, I sent Jon the following message:
Hi Sweetie or should I say greetings from Hamilton General Hospital where I may or may not have had a heart attack. I only have one of three markers that indicate that so the doctors here in the ER are waiting for the cardiology team to come in around eight and review my case.
I am also scheduled for an angiogram later today. Brodie can fill you in on the details…
Lying there thinking back on my conversation the night before with Dr. Lamy and the certainty with which he responded as he reviewed my health history with me, I had little doubt that I would soon be undergoing bypass surgery.
I’ve been a Type 2 Diabetic since the mid ‘90s and a coronary artery disease patient since the early 2000s.
Coronary artery disease, the thickening of the lining of the walls of the arteries in the heart, is progressive and relentless. While it can be slowed by medications such as statin drugs along with diet and exercise, and the risk of heart attack lowered with beta blockers and daily usage of low dose aspirin eventually surgical intervention is required.
Beginning in 2002, I had the first of four stents inserted in my major arteries to improve the flow of oxygen-rich blood to my heart. Stents, however, eventually reobstruct or occlude and once again block the flow of blood to the heart. They are generally believed to only be effective for about ten years.
…the road he’d travel was undergoing major expansion leaving the two lane highway through that remote region a veritable minefield and an arduous drive even in broad daylight. – Image courtesy of CBC
I was doing fairly well, my most recent ones were going on 14 years.
During those years, I passed physical exams, and the blood tests used to monitor my condition were, for the most part, quite good. In 2015, a nuclear scan of the blood flow to my heart was deemed “normal.”
Ironically, just two weeks before leaving Sudbury for Hamilton I had blood drawn and the full panel of tests done.
“Your potassium level is a bit lower than normal,” the doctor reviewing my results said, “but the rest of your results, cholesterol, A1C, and kidney function, are all quite good.”
Fortunately for me, whatever medication the ER had given me kept me calm and I didn’t begin obsessing about either the past or my upcoming angiogram.
Eventually a group of heavily bearded Russian dancers wearing thick black boots, white scrubs and Ushankas entered the room doing the Dance of The Cygnets from Swan Lake and the cardiac team arrived. I was deemed to be having a heart attack, for the previous 11 hours.
After that, things get really fuzzy.
I remember being told that of the two types of heart attack I could be having, mine, while still very serious, was the lesser of the two in terms of being eminently life threatening.
I have no memory of how I managed to end up virtually naked—those damn hospital gowns slide right off your shoulders—on a gurney being wheeled into the ice cold room where my angiogram would be done but I remember being there.
I was introduced to the team that would perform the procedure, said hello, and turned over on one side as requested.
The next thing I remember…
“I’ve been completely anethia, anezia, knocked out,” I said to the nurse back in my holding room. “That means I’ll be having a bypass, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said while trying to get me to lie back and not sit up or stand.
“Why the delay?” I asked, lying back down on the bed.
“We need to stabilize you first,” she continued. “Dr. Lamy will be in later to talk to you.”
“Stabilize,” me, I thought. “I’m feeling no pain. Why can’t I go home?” And off to lala land I went once again.
I must have regained some semblance of consciousness because I recently found a series of text messages I exchanged with Jon, which I have no recollection of, that took place around noon that day. He was texting from a gas station in Barrie, Ontario some 151 KM/94 MI from Hamilton General.
Jon: Heck of a way to get out of house shopping you know.
Me: You know how creative we writers can be.
Jon: Indeed i do. Thank goodness Brodie is there with you. I’m thankful.
So bypass huh?
Me: Yeah and I’m going to hold them off until you get here.
Jon: Ok. Well in that case I’d better grab a snack and get the hell out of here.
Upon finding my early morning text, Jon, as expected and without stopping for coffee or breakfast, had grabbed a few items of clothing, jumped in his car and began the long trek down to Hamilton.
I signed the form and was then comforted by the original Bert and Ernie before drifting off to sleep once again.
I needn’t have worried about holding off the surgery. The next thing I recall was sitting up in bed sometime later that day or possibly evening listening as Dr. Lamy explained that if I was stabilized—there was that word again—overnight he would perform my surgery first thing the following morning.
If things did not go well for me that evening, there was another cardiac surgeon on duty who could operate on me, but he preferred I have another night to stabilize before undergoing surgery.
As I would discover weeks later, the additional stress brought on by the tiny clot floating around my severely clogged arteries was causing my heart to beat erratically, hence making me an unstable candidate for open heart surgery in all but the most dire circumstances.
Dr. Lamy explained the type of bypass procedure to be used—hell if I can remember— and the possible consequences, after which he gave me a consent form and a pen. I signed the form and was then comforted by the original Bert and Ernie before drifting off to sleep once again. I’m pretty sure Brodie and Jonny were there too.
And then it was Friday.
Edited by
Kenneth Larsen
Next week: The Cardiac Chronicles Part 3, It’s Smarter To Be Lucky
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