I kept bragging about how good I felt...
Mom fell a couple of weeks back, and my niece Charlotte, hinted that she wasn't feeling very well. She is very good at the whole guilt trip thing just like every other woman in my family. She learned from some of the best guilt dealers around; my mother, my aunt Leslie, and her own mother. So I decided to call mom around 3 pm and see how she was doing. The conversation goes well for a while as I am able to dodge her not so very subtle hints for me to go to church before the impending apocalypse. After an hour of the usual questions; how are the kids, who is pregnant, who died, how is your diabetes, etc, she mentioned that one of the preachers that frequents her church told her that very morning, that she was going to be receiving great news in the next 14 days or so. Her husband thought it would be great to throw my name in the mix by suggesting that such news might have something to do with me in some way. I thought maybe I would hit the lottery or something and was kind of excited about that. I am a self described atheist who does not believe in any of what my mother has dedicated her life preaching about but just in case I was wrong, as she usually makes me feel, decided to buy a lottery ticket. Who knows, maybe the good news will be that I hit the lottery and will come to the island and pay everyone's bills off. We said our goodbyes and I settled down to watch a movie.
Later on that night, I find my sister on Facebook and decide to ask about her health, based on a bit of information mom casually dropped into our conversation earlier that day about my sister having some problems with her stomach. A short exchange ensues at the end of which she asks about my health and me, in my eternal desire not to worry anyone, tell her that I am fine and improving, then tell her I love her and close the computer. 10 seconds after moving the laptop out of the way my forearms start hurting like I had just spent 8 hours typing. Soon after, my chest gets numb and I start getting dizzy. I run to the toilet thinking it might be food poisoning but after a few mind numbing pushes nothing improves. The sweat starts pouring all over me. It feels like someone is squeezing a soaked sponge on top of my head. Time to call the ambulance! Just as they pull in the driveway, my gut decides to get rid of everything I have eaten in the last 10 hours. The EMT's rush in and hook me up to every hose they can bring in, load me up onto a gurney and roll me out to the back of their ambulance. They seem very curious and insist on getting to know me better. "What is your age? When were you born? What is your social security number? Do you live here? Did you take Viagra?" They did not believe me when I said no and kept asking me the same question. I did not sport any wood at the moment so the question confused me for a minute until i realize maybe other people would be ashamed to admit they took the little magic blue pill. Once in the ambulance they continue their interrogation and by then it is starting to get on my nerves. My mood changes from cooperating nice guy to put the morphine in me right now you motherfuckers before I start punching the shit out of you. I think they noticed because the needles start making their appearance and the drugs finally start doing their thing. The pain goes away and everything around me does not matter anymore. Within a few minutes they are unloading me from the ambulance onto the emergency room where the welcoming committee is anxious to start poking at me. While in the ambulance they took an EKG that showed I was having a heart attack so the hospital was ready. All I could think at the moment was, "Shit, I am going to have to pay for every single one of these bastards that are standing around doing nothing just looking at me."
They moved me to another gurney and the EMT's give the resident doctor what they found out. He orders another EKG but that one showed that things were going back to normal. I heard someone say "Are you going to call it?", and my "Grey's Anatomy" education kicks in making me think I am going to die. But I was wrong. Apparently they have to call it a heart attack based on the first EKG so I can get the right treatment even though the second EKG showed I was getting better. Doctor skinny explained that even though the new results show I am getting better, they still have to treat me as if I was still having the heart attack to make sure I didn’t get a stronger one and die. I think that is a very reason! They took X rays, stuck me with a bunch of needles, pumped me full of medicine watched me for a while to make sure I wasn’t going to have another one. After they felt confident I was improving they moved me to a room with a TV. Then after an hour or so, they moved me to the ICU. From experience, those three letters scare the shit out of me. Every time one of my family members goes to ICU things do not end up so well, but there is not much I can do about it so I let them push me to my new room. There is a TV on that one also, notice this seems to be a recurring theme in my story. That damn TV had better controls than the first one but there was no volume control. By now it’s about 4 am and this damn TV is loud as hell. Granted, people on ICU units usually do not need the TV because they are laid out unconscious but I felt guilty every time I turned it on thinking it was bothering the other patients. A very nice nurse assures me there is nothing to worry about because the other patients on the floor are indeed old and knocked out so the noise is not going to bother them. Somehow, this did not make me feel totally at ease but who am I to tell them how to do their jobs. I did ask her about the volume control and she said there was another remote she would look for that will help with the noise. Such remote never appeared by the way. I did have a good talk with her about what to expect in the next few hours. Apparently they were going to put a catheter up my groin and into my heart to see how much damage was there, and I would hear the results of the tests they ran with my blood to see how big was the heart attack.
Daylight comes and a lady shows up to my room, razor in hand, to prepare my naughty bits for their unveiling. She explains that they are going to make a hole around my groin area to insert a long tube unto my artery and guide a camera up to my heart. The doctor, will then take pictures of my insides and determine what has to be done once he is in there. Then she continues with her onslaught onto my once very hairy crotch giving it a very disturbing haircut. That was very traumatic for me. I still have nightmares about it. Moments later the big guys show up to load me onto another gurney and take me to the butcher's shop. The whole thing goes very quickly. One moment I am watching Animal Planet and the next I am being told, "It’s not going to hurt, do not worry". The doctor finally makes an appearance and introduces himself. His accent is thicker than mine; mind you I am reminded every day of my life how much I sound like Ricky Ricardo. The only difference is that the doctor's heritage shows no relation to mine whatsoever. He speaks one of those obscure European languages and I soon realize what my friends go through every time I get pissed off and try to speak. Somehow, the nurses make me feel great though and once they give me the drugs, I stop caring about who is sticking me with what anymore. I catch a glimpse of what he and his assistant are doing when I look into a monitor and the whole thing freaks me out a little bit. The most surprising aspect of the whole thing is that I didn’t feel a thing. Not even a little prick. I did keep thinking how good those drugs were.
Later on that night, I find my sister on Facebook and decide to ask about her health, based on a bit of information mom casually dropped into our conversation earlier that day about my sister having some problems with her stomach. A short exchange ensues at the end of which she asks about my health and me, in my eternal desire not to worry anyone, tell her that I am fine and improving, then tell her I love her and close the computer. 10 seconds after moving the laptop out of the way my forearms start hurting like I had just spent 8 hours typing. Soon after, my chest gets numb and I start getting dizzy. I run to the toilet thinking it might be food poisoning but after a few mind numbing pushes nothing improves. The sweat starts pouring all over me. It feels like someone is squeezing a soaked sponge on top of my head. Time to call the ambulance! Just as they pull in the driveway, my gut decides to get rid of everything I have eaten in the last 10 hours. The EMT's rush in and hook me up to every hose they can bring in, load me up onto a gurney and roll me out to the back of their ambulance. They seem very curious and insist on getting to know me better. "What is your age? When were you born? What is your social security number? Do you live here? Did you take Viagra?" They did not believe me when I said no and kept asking me the same question. I did not sport any wood at the moment so the question confused me for a minute until i realize maybe other people would be ashamed to admit they took the little magic blue pill. Once in the ambulance they continue their interrogation and by then it is starting to get on my nerves. My mood changes from cooperating nice guy to put the morphine in me right now you motherfuckers before I start punching the shit out of you. I think they noticed because the needles start making their appearance and the drugs finally start doing their thing. The pain goes away and everything around me does not matter anymore. Within a few minutes they are unloading me from the ambulance onto the emergency room where the welcoming committee is anxious to start poking at me. While in the ambulance they took an EKG that showed I was having a heart attack so the hospital was ready. All I could think at the moment was, "Shit, I am going to have to pay for every single one of these bastards that are standing around doing nothing just looking at me."
They moved me to another gurney and the EMT's give the resident doctor what they found out. He orders another EKG but that one showed that things were going back to normal. I heard someone say "Are you going to call it?", and my "Grey's Anatomy" education kicks in making me think I am going to die. But I was wrong. Apparently they have to call it a heart attack based on the first EKG so I can get the right treatment even though the second EKG showed I was getting better. Doctor skinny explained that even though the new results show I am getting better, they still have to treat me as if I was still having the heart attack to make sure I didn’t get a stronger one and die. I think that is a very reason! They took X rays, stuck me with a bunch of needles, pumped me full of medicine watched me for a while to make sure I wasn’t going to have another one. After they felt confident I was improving they moved me to a room with a TV. Then after an hour or so, they moved me to the ICU. From experience, those three letters scare the shit out of me. Every time one of my family members goes to ICU things do not end up so well, but there is not much I can do about it so I let them push me to my new room. There is a TV on that one also, notice this seems to be a recurring theme in my story. That damn TV had better controls than the first one but there was no volume control. By now it’s about 4 am and this damn TV is loud as hell. Granted, people on ICU units usually do not need the TV because they are laid out unconscious but I felt guilty every time I turned it on thinking it was bothering the other patients. A very nice nurse assures me there is nothing to worry about because the other patients on the floor are indeed old and knocked out so the noise is not going to bother them. Somehow, this did not make me feel totally at ease but who am I to tell them how to do their jobs. I did ask her about the volume control and she said there was another remote she would look for that will help with the noise. Such remote never appeared by the way. I did have a good talk with her about what to expect in the next few hours. Apparently they were going to put a catheter up my groin and into my heart to see how much damage was there, and I would hear the results of the tests they ran with my blood to see how big was the heart attack.
Daylight comes and a lady shows up to my room, razor in hand, to prepare my naughty bits for their unveiling. She explains that they are going to make a hole around my groin area to insert a long tube unto my artery and guide a camera up to my heart. The doctor, will then take pictures of my insides and determine what has to be done once he is in there. Then she continues with her onslaught onto my once very hairy crotch giving it a very disturbing haircut. That was very traumatic for me. I still have nightmares about it. Moments later the big guys show up to load me onto another gurney and take me to the butcher's shop. The whole thing goes very quickly. One moment I am watching Animal Planet and the next I am being told, "It’s not going to hurt, do not worry". The doctor finally makes an appearance and introduces himself. His accent is thicker than mine; mind you I am reminded every day of my life how much I sound like Ricky Ricardo. The only difference is that the doctor's heritage shows no relation to mine whatsoever. He speaks one of those obscure European languages and I soon realize what my friends go through every time I get pissed off and try to speak. Somehow, the nurses make me feel great though and once they give me the drugs, I stop caring about who is sticking me with what anymore. I catch a glimpse of what he and his assistant are doing when I look into a monitor and the whole thing freaks me out a little bit. The most surprising aspect of the whole thing is that I didn’t feel a thing. Not even a little prick. I did keep thinking how good those drugs were.
Foreign Objects.
"Doctor Quickie" turns to me and explains what just happened. I have a couple of blocked arteries. One of them was 100 percent blocked and needed to be unblocked right away. He inserted a stent in the area that was once blocked to open it up and keep it opened from now on. He also explained what a stent was. A metal “meshy” tube that is flexible and they stuck it in me to keep my ass alive. That’s about the jest of it! Once he showed me the picture I realized how bad it really was. He also stuck a little balloon up there to blow some of the veins open. He also explained how they will need to put in another one the next day and will go in through the other side of my groin. Oh goodie! More holes!
The big guys show up once again and roll me back to my blaring TV room. Once in there, I get to meet my new nurse. She quickly introduces herself while sticking me with another needle. I ask questions about my treatment but she quickly exits the room under the pretense of getting something she forgot, not to be seen again for hours. The doctor left something attacked to my groin that has to be removed after the blood thinner they gave me wears off. A simple procedure I thought. It cannot be that complicated if the doctor is not going to do it himself, Right? Well, if you answered yes, then you and I are both wrong. Apparently, the thing they have to remove is a tube attached to one of the thickest arteries in the body and if your blood does not coagulate quickly you can bleed to death in minutes. Now there is an incentive to want someone with experience doing this. No such luck! A nurse shows up, a very nice one I must say, but a nurse nonetheless, and she sweet talks me into letting her do it. My assigned nurse had something else to do (I find out later she was smoking outside) and this one was her friend so she decided to cover for her. At no point in the whole conversation did she tell me how painful this whole thing was going to be. Her smile and sweet attitude led me to believe she was fully experience in the art of removing tubes out of arteries and her small soft hands gave me the false impression that she was going to make it a nice experience for me. The next thing I know she yanks the tube out of me and as it is coming out I feel every single ripple of the corrugated tube sliding out of my leg. The pain is excruciating! I scream at the top of my lungs while grabbing the rails of the bed with both my hands and trying not to move my leg because according to her if I bend my leg I will bleed to death right there. She then tells my friend who was visiting me to pull on my leg to keep me from moving it as she put her full weight on both her fists while putting pressure on the artery to let the blood coagulate. This goes on for 20 minutes. 20 minutes of me screaming bloody murder while having her push down onto my very sore, recently shaved and punctured groin with her full weight. I try not to look into her eyes because I swear at some point she stopped being a sweet soft handed nurse and transformed into a black leather clad, pain dealing expert mistress of my nightmares. At the 10 minute mark the hallucinations kicked in and I started seeing things. Chains hanging from the ceiling, black painted walls, purple lights flashing all around my head, people laughing, and carnival music playing in the background and if I am not mistaken, there were clowns making balloon animals standing behind my bed.
I refused to look at the wound in fear of seeing a live version of one of "Kill Bill's" scenes with the open spiket blood fountains. Instead, I try to focus on breathing and enjoying the funny routines that by now my new friends the clowns have come up with. The whole experience is more painful than the damn heart attack that put me there in the first place. I just can’t understand why they would put me through such an excruciating odyssey knowing that I have a weak heart. It just doesn’t make sense. But then again, who am I to tell them otherwise. Just when I think it couldn’t get any worse and its becoming very hard to keep my focus, Mistress Nurse pulls away and the most amazing thing happens. Pleasure takes over. And when I say pleasure, I mean there was definite wood! I am afraid that that whole incident might have affected me more than I thought. I might be trolling the web for spiked hill wearing ladies of the night. Then the bomb drops. She very nonchalantly lets it slip that I have to do it all over again the next day. WHAT THE FUCK ?
The big guys show up once again and roll me back to my blaring TV room. Once in there, I get to meet my new nurse. She quickly introduces herself while sticking me with another needle. I ask questions about my treatment but she quickly exits the room under the pretense of getting something she forgot, not to be seen again for hours. The doctor left something attacked to my groin that has to be removed after the blood thinner they gave me wears off. A simple procedure I thought. It cannot be that complicated if the doctor is not going to do it himself, Right? Well, if you answered yes, then you and I are both wrong. Apparently, the thing they have to remove is a tube attached to one of the thickest arteries in the body and if your blood does not coagulate quickly you can bleed to death in minutes. Now there is an incentive to want someone with experience doing this. No such luck! A nurse shows up, a very nice one I must say, but a nurse nonetheless, and she sweet talks me into letting her do it. My assigned nurse had something else to do (I find out later she was smoking outside) and this one was her friend so she decided to cover for her. At no point in the whole conversation did she tell me how painful this whole thing was going to be. Her smile and sweet attitude led me to believe she was fully experience in the art of removing tubes out of arteries and her small soft hands gave me the false impression that she was going to make it a nice experience for me. The next thing I know she yanks the tube out of me and as it is coming out I feel every single ripple of the corrugated tube sliding out of my leg. The pain is excruciating! I scream at the top of my lungs while grabbing the rails of the bed with both my hands and trying not to move my leg because according to her if I bend my leg I will bleed to death right there. She then tells my friend who was visiting me to pull on my leg to keep me from moving it as she put her full weight on both her fists while putting pressure on the artery to let the blood coagulate. This goes on for 20 minutes. 20 minutes of me screaming bloody murder while having her push down onto my very sore, recently shaved and punctured groin with her full weight. I try not to look into her eyes because I swear at some point she stopped being a sweet soft handed nurse and transformed into a black leather clad, pain dealing expert mistress of my nightmares. At the 10 minute mark the hallucinations kicked in and I started seeing things. Chains hanging from the ceiling, black painted walls, purple lights flashing all around my head, people laughing, and carnival music playing in the background and if I am not mistaken, there were clowns making balloon animals standing behind my bed.
I refused to look at the wound in fear of seeing a live version of one of "Kill Bill's" scenes with the open spiket blood fountains. Instead, I try to focus on breathing and enjoying the funny routines that by now my new friends the clowns have come up with. The whole experience is more painful than the damn heart attack that put me there in the first place. I just can’t understand why they would put me through such an excruciating odyssey knowing that I have a weak heart. It just doesn’t make sense. But then again, who am I to tell them otherwise. Just when I think it couldn’t get any worse and its becoming very hard to keep my focus, Mistress Nurse pulls away and the most amazing thing happens. Pleasure takes over. And when I say pleasure, I mean there was definite wood! I am afraid that that whole incident might have affected me more than I thought. I might be trolling the web for spiked hill wearing ladies of the night. Then the bomb drops. She very nonchalantly lets it slip that I have to do it all over again the next day. WHAT THE FUCK ?
The day after...
As night falls, everything starts to come into focus. By now, every drop of morphine or whatever drug they filled me up with at the CATH Lab wears off and I start really feeling it. I feel my hair starting to grow back. It itches like hell. There are places in a man's body that should not itch this much. They need to come up with a better pattern to shave one's balls into. Give it a little thought or something. Don't just pull out the weed whacker and go nuts on the nuts. Right now I have a landing strip that is very reminiscing of a few porno flicks I watched in the 80's. There is no way in hell I am showing that to anyone anytime soon, not that I would get the chance anyways since my sex life has been cut short. At least now I can blame the doctor for my lack of action. "I am sorry! Mr. Dragon can't come out to play. He is under house arrest."
Hunger starts to set in. I haven’t been eating much of what they bring me because it is full of sugar. Pears in heavy syrup, cookies, a cheeseburger with all the fixings, and a bunch of other stuff. I ask the nurses why do they keep bringing me shit that I am not supposed to be eating and all they say is, "Let me find out why!" Then they do not come back. I ask the niec night nurse if there is anything that she can bring me that might satiate my desire to gnaw my arm off and she says "No problem". I can feel my tongue getting hard at the prospects. Little did I know! Minutes later she shows up with a cup of pisswater labeled "Orange juice" and a slice of turkey lunch meat in between 2 dried up slices of brown bread that for a moment I thought had been toasted based on it's hardness. Oh the depravity! I pick it up and take a bite, then look at her. She can't contain her laughter. We both burst out laughing at the stupidity of it all. It is amazing what one will eat when there is absolutely nothing else around. At home, that sandwich would turn my dogs away, but here, I scarf it up really quick before the nurse changes her mind and takes it away. I will never again complain about how long the line behind the deli counter at Publix is when I shop for my lunch meat.
After scarfing up the driest "sandwich on the planet, a sudden stupor follows that could be confused with satisfaction but I know better. I managed to fool my body into thinking that what I was shoving in my mouth was real food. I guess the heart attack weakened my defenses and my body could correctly identify what it really was; leather and cardboard. The sweet night nurse spends a bit of time keeping me company but soon has to leave my room to go tend to the other patients. I manage to catch a few winks but not enough. Soon, the light starts peaking in through the window and the noise of rolling carts thunders through the once hallways outside my door. Anxiety and quickness of breath start taking over my body as the times looms of my next visit to the CATH lab. I am really not looking forward to thsi shit all over again but before I have time to ponder all the pros and cons, the big guys how up at my door once again, pushing their cart to load me onto and sporting one hell of a grin. Yesterday they did not look so intimidating but today, for some reason
Hunger starts to set in. I haven’t been eating much of what they bring me because it is full of sugar. Pears in heavy syrup, cookies, a cheeseburger with all the fixings, and a bunch of other stuff. I ask the nurses why do they keep bringing me shit that I am not supposed to be eating and all they say is, "Let me find out why!" Then they do not come back. I ask the niec night nurse if there is anything that she can bring me that might satiate my desire to gnaw my arm off and she says "No problem". I can feel my tongue getting hard at the prospects. Little did I know! Minutes later she shows up with a cup of pisswater labeled "Orange juice" and a slice of turkey lunch meat in between 2 dried up slices of brown bread that for a moment I thought had been toasted based on it's hardness. Oh the depravity! I pick it up and take a bite, then look at her. She can't contain her laughter. We both burst out laughing at the stupidity of it all. It is amazing what one will eat when there is absolutely nothing else around. At home, that sandwich would turn my dogs away, but here, I scarf it up really quick before the nurse changes her mind and takes it away. I will never again complain about how long the line behind the deli counter at Publix is when I shop for my lunch meat.
After scarfing up the driest "sandwich on the planet, a sudden stupor follows that could be confused with satisfaction but I know better. I managed to fool my body into thinking that what I was shoving in my mouth was real food. I guess the heart attack weakened my defenses and my body could correctly identify what it really was; leather and cardboard. The sweet night nurse spends a bit of time keeping me company but soon has to leave my room to go tend to the other patients. I manage to catch a few winks but not enough. Soon, the light starts peaking in through the window and the noise of rolling carts thunders through the once hallways outside my door. Anxiety and quickness of breath start taking over my body as the times looms of my next visit to the CATH lab. I am really not looking forward to thsi shit all over again but before I have time to ponder all the pros and cons, the big guys how up at my door once again, pushing their cart to load me onto and sporting one hell of a grin. Yesterday they did not look so intimidating but today, for some reason