Attack of the Heart

Pt 2 of 3: On we go.

Pt 1 of this post took us into the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH), via a big yellow and green taxi as I was found to have had an attack of the heart. I concluded that post with these cliff-hangers: Don gets a stent - or does he? Life on the angiogram table and, 'what’s that wiggly thing doing there?'

So now let's press on to the heart of the journey.

Saturday 18th February (my late mother's birthday as it happens), about 1.30 pm, 14 hours since dialling 000, the wheeling people come in to take me off to the angiogram room. First of all I had to forfeit my underwear, so that's a little ominous, and then I remember that the catheter for the angiogram can go either into an artery in the wrist or the femoral artery in the groin.

So its trundle, trundle, into the lift, up or down, can't remember which, to a small dungeon-like room that seemed to be in the very bowels of the RAH. Fortunately they took me in facing the right way, 'cos there wouldn't have been any room for turning around.

Looking around me I saw screens, video screens, lots of video screens. And then people were working on and around me. I felt like a moribund butterfly on an ant nest.

I found it very reassuring that these five people did their thing very efficiently. Very soon my right arm was extended from my body, placed in a clear plastic half sleeve, immobilised and lickety-split a catheter was inserted in my right wrist.

There was my cardiologist (who may well have had a baton in his hand); the driver of the catheter and associated hardware; a driver of the scanner that indeed needed a driver - all mechanical elbows and long arms connected end to end and manoeuvrable to a millimetre.

Then there was a woman over on a keyboard who was managing the images that went on all those screens at a moment's notice in response to the conductor's (oops, cardiologist's) request. Then there was another woman who was to later play a vital role.

So I'm lying there completely conscious of what is going on and after a while, I found the confidence to engage the conductor, inquiring into some details about what I was seeing on one of the screens.

He answered me clearly and calmly without missing a beat, as he requested a change of position of the scanner and an update of the current image to be placed alongside the initial image. Both requests were delivered with a respectful "thank you" or "please" included in each direction.

On the screens, dye highlighted the blood vessels encasing and feeding oxygen to my heart. As I watched I could see the rising and falling of the chest as background to the highlighted blood vessels rising and falling with the beating of my heart.

For the first time I saw my life force, the power source of my physical body, supporting me without question, without direction, just keeping me going - up and down, again and again, as it has done for more than 62 years, and will continue to do, until on one beat it will not beat again - and this window of the universe that looks into the universe will close. And the universe will carry on.

They were 'having a bit of fun' with getting the right stent to do the right thing in the right place. They all remained clam and focused, unlike me when a new app just won't do what I want it to, (hmmm - that might be a clue for how I got here).

And while this is going on, this universe, watching itself look at itself through itself, noticed something else. So it questioned the conductor, "How much longer are we likely to be here?"

"Not too long," came the easy reply. And then about ten minutes later all my feedback processes demanded I make the inquiry again with an additional piece of information. "How much longer are we likely to be here, because I've been pumped full of fluids and I'm not sure how long my old prostate can hold out?"

"Oh, I get your drift, shouldn't be too long, but we'll get you a bottle anyway."

So the woman, whose task I wasn't sure of earlier, came into play. Appearing on my left side, with bottle in hand, she reached in under the blanket, gathered up all my manly accoutrements in a neat ball and thrust the open neck of the bottle at said accoutremental bundle and withdrew stage left.

It was clear that the current misalignment of self and bottle was doomed to leave us all awash (to say the least). I was pressed into becoming part of the crew as 'docking technician'. Under a great head of pressure, the old valves straining to breaking point, I felt a bit like Scotty.

"She can'na take it cap'n! She's gonna blow!" I was present enough not to say out loud.

Instead, with my non-dominant hand, handicapped by the monitor cuff on my index finger, I adjust the whole kit and caboodle into a workable configuration.

Mission accomplished, the pressure was released without a missed beat of either my heart or the maestro's baton.

All in all, the procedure went really well, and after 1.4 litres (in the bottle) and about an hour, it was all over. The bottle that had kept my upper legs warm for a good deal of the time, was handed back from whence it came to the professionally subdued delight (dare I say admiration) of all concerned.

I'd like to make an observation here.

I used to have trouble just asking for directions. Even as an adult, I felt I ought to know where I was at any given time. Not knowing where I was or what I was to do, was loaded with embarrassment accompanied by defensive angst.

On this day I was not only able to ask for a bottle, but to use it in the company of others. It was just a part of the moment, free of judgement or correctness. Ahh, the relief, both physical and psychological - I could now die a happy man.

However, my cardiologist was having none of that. He was focussed on getting me out of the RAH vertical. And so 1.4 litres lighter, three stents heavier, a little bruised on my forearm, and greatly reassured in so many ways, I was on my way back to the ward - trundle, trundle...

A great battle won, my adventure was not yet at an end. Like all heroic quests, one is required to stay alert until the very end. All too often, inattention arising from the expectation of the end of the mission, can bring the whole shebang undone. (Remember folks; Most vehicular accidents occur within 3 kilometres of the home.)

Don't miss the next and final instalment in which our protagonist, gets to have a shower - ah bliss; comes face to face with a psychopath; is cared for by beings of all sexes and sources; rounded off, with an exit from the hospital that plays out as if orchestrated by the great conductor him/herself.