To be honest, I guess I shouldn’t even be here. I mean, the signs were there, you know. Some if not all the tell-tales were evident, especially in hindsight. Let’s look at a few of the billboards along the highway toward my latest misfortune, shall we?
First off, my whole family has had a history of heart trouble. That’s apparent from the records. My father had quintuple bypass surgery back in the ’80. That’s ALL the cardiac arteries. My mother passed away from a heart attack at age 52 – two months after I married my wife. My next-youngest brother passed from a heart attack at age 42. My youngest brother has had a heart attack, several stents implanted and wears a pace maker/defillibrater in his chest to this day. And let’s not forget the various cousins, aunts and uncles, etc.
Lots and lots of ticker troubles. And, of course I knew all about that. And of course every time I had any discomfort at all in my chest region I went running to get it checked out.
And the results, until recently of course, were always, “no trouble found.”
I’m in my late ‘60’s now and was beginning to think that maybe I had escaped the brutal family genetics, maybe my heart had skipped a generation insofar as it’s predisposed genetic propensity to “get sick”. I used to feel maybe a bit lucky in this regard.
A bit fortunate?
But that once-in-a-lifetime lottery draw was not to be my fate this time around the karmic wheel.
Maybe it actually started a couple months ago with some stomach troubles. I’d gone to my doctor with some gastric complaints, pains here and there in the mid-chest/gut region and had been subjected to a series of stomach tests – upper G.I., ultrasound of my gall bladder and pancreas and an endoscopy of my ensophogeus and stomach. Nothing of any import was discovered. Just an old man with some on-again, off-again stomach issues.
I’d had them before.
Then on Wednesday, February 17 while exercising at our local gym along with my wife I began to experience middle-of-the-chest pains that increased the harder I worked. My wife, after hearing of my discomfort asked if I wanted her to drive us when we left. I said no and still felt bad by the time we got to the car. After a lunch my pain had subsided and I again thought – stomach?
Now by this time you and I BOTH know that it wasn’t stomach pain. Sure it wasn’t classical heart attack – no radiating pain up the neck or jawline or down the left arm. No particular sweats or terrors.
But…
But…
I should have been smarter. My wife should have been just THAT much more insistent on Wednesday that I do something about the discomfort.
Anything, actually.
I was heading helter skelter toward being one of those dumb statistics you see all around you. Right age, right lifestyle, right history, ignored the most BLATANT symptoms. Blah, blah, blah – idiot, idiot, idiot.
So my former life went on for another day-and-a-half.
The big-top went up for real on Friday morning, February 19 about 6:45. I woke up to quite heavy pains again dead center in my chest. A quick trip to the bathroom scored no improvement in the symptom and my wife asked in a worried tone of voice from her side of the bed whether I might want to call the emergency squad. She had finally figured out the magic equation of 1 + 1 and had, at last, arrived at the correct answer of 2. So I agreed and quickly dialed the 9-1-1.
Seeing as how we live only about two blocks from the main firehouse here in town, my rescue squad arrived in about five minutes. They assisted me to the vehicle and quickly I was hooked up to a heart monitor and heading up the street to the hospital about a mile and a half up the road.
The squad pulled in to the hospital’s emergency entrance and efficiently extracted me from the ambulance and wheeled me into the ER. Soon I was having test equipment poked and prodded onto me, into me and many, many questions were asked. By that time it was about 7:30 and my chest pain was GONE! I wasn’t sure if that was something that happened from time to time during heart attacks, but it sure did happen that time. My ER doctor was sure in his mind that what I had just suffered WAS a heart attack and immediately started an enzyme study. When a person has a heart attack, certain enzymes are released into his blood stream. The discovery of these chemicals is the present gold standard on whether the individual has truly had a heart attack.
They test your blood a number of times for these chemicals. And, of course, mine didn’t show any telltales the first time around.
However, it was there the second time and for all the following tests.
I was a “for-sure” heart attack victim.
Good grief, Charlie Brown!
I was admitted to the hospital later that day. The docs wanted to take a look at the condition of my heart vessels, but the cath lab doesn’t do “routine” heart catherizations on weekends.
Lucky me, I would have to wait a bit.
I was scheduled for the test on Monday morning. In the meantime my local hospital performed many other tests on me to clarify the picture for any physicians wanting more information, x-rays, ultrasounds and many, many blood tests for this and that.
Monday morning I was wheeled down to the cath lab and experienced one of those weird dejavu circumstances. One of the cath assistants, good-looking fellow about mid-30’s came up to me and introduced himself. I took a gander at him. He looked AWFULLY familiar. I asked him if he had a brother who worked in the hospital’s fitness facility. He responded, “Yes, a twin.” I had just that week finished a series of physical therapy sessions with that guy’s brother!
They were identical.
The cath itself went pretty uneventfully and before long the doctor was explaining that there were three arteries mainly blocked and I was going to be transferred to Canton Aultman Hospital in preparation for coronary bypass surgery.
I guess my mind was sort of numb by then. It was a whole lot to take in. I just nodded.
The trip to Canton was pretty uneventful. A Wooster nurse accompanied us as I still had the cath sleeve stuck in my femoral artery in my groin where the cath had been inserted and she was in charge of that piece of apparatus. I think they were contemplating stents even then, but the inserted piece was removed soon after arriving at the new hospital.
Apparently surgery it was to be.
I was scheduled for midday on Monday for my operation. A good friend of ours accompanied my wife to the hospital to share the long waiting hours with her and I was immensely grateful for that.
My bed was wheeled down to the prep room a little before go-time and the “vein” lady began checking my legs. They would use some of my veins from there for the bypass and she wanted an early peek as to where the “good” ones were. Soon she was satisfied she’d selected the best ones for harvest and had my left leg all marked up with cryptic magic marker symbols.
I was then wheeled into the operating room. They had promised me some sedatives about then to calm me down, but they weren’t, as far as I was concerned, as quick with the needle as I had hoped. I was helped onto a steel table and they started to strap me down. Apparently I was babbling about how I didn’t want to see ANYTHING in that room and to please give me the “happy juice”, etc. The doctors and nurses all were chuckling at my discomfiture, patting me and assuring me that all would be well. Obviously it was another “day at the office” for them.
I guess you had to be there.
About that time I bid adios to the conscious world and knew no more for a time.
I found out a bit later after waking up that an emergency case had come in and it had taken precedence over me. I had been shunted a bit aside and kept asleep until the emergency was handled. Then my procedure was done. So my time asleep was about twice what they’d originally figured on. My wife and her friend were there until almost midnight.
A terribly long day for them just waiting.
I was later told that the doctors assumed I’d sleep until early afternoon after the surgery. That’s what happens when you assume stuff. I awoke at 4:30, less than 5 hours after completion. I guess I was tired being knocked out.
A lot of things happened the next few days. Some I kinda remember, some I’ve had recounted to me. People came, people left. Tests were performed on me and results gathered. Time passed for me in the hospital and, I assume, for the rest of the world not so tied up in the minutia of the healing of one old man in northeast Ohio.
Tuesday I got morphine. I guess I was in some pretty severe pain and the docs told my wife they were “allowed” to use it once. She smiled as she recounted my words after getting the blessed shot. “I think I’m going to sleep now. Good night!” And I got the MOST restful four hours of sleep maybe in my life.
Things started looking up from that point.
I found, during my time in the hospital after the operation, that I was having difficulties speaking, in expressing the thoughts I was having. I could see the whole concept I wanted to say – it was floating out there like a thought bubble in a cartoon – but when I went to grab it with my proverbial butterfly net, most times it shattered and what came out of my mouth sounded like gibberish. I have always assumed myself to be halfway articulate, and this was intellectually painful. I asked about this malfunction from my doctors later and was told it was called “heart-lung” brain or some such term.
It was a result of the anesthesia. It would go away.
And it has, mostly. I still feel a little “loss for words” from time to time, but never to that degree of bewilderment that I felt most of the first week.
I also found I was using profanity more than I usually do. Inappropriately I’m sure. Forgive me for that. It was also a “glitch” in the firmware.
During the five or so days I inhabited the big hospital in Canton my body began it’s healing. Every day I enjoyed small victories: getting in the recliner next to the bed for some “non-horizontal” healing. Getting the catheter and drain tubes disconnected. Going to the bathroom unassisted. Walking the halls for exercise with my wife by my side. Putting on a pair of pajama bottoms and rejoicing at once again having pants on!
And during those days I also rejoiced at my guests. My loving circle of family and friends. The conversations and quiet laughter we shared, the smiles and pats on the shoulder, the words of encouragement. Not to mention the strong words of prayer given by my sister and brother-in-law which bolstered my now rapidly healing heart and which undoubtedly did much to encourage my healing body and peaceful mind.
I also received numerous phone calls from friends and loved ones that could not be there in person, which also raised my spirits and encouraged my healing. It was always a joy to hear my room phone or my cell jingle during those long days.
On Friday it was hinted that I might go home the following day. It seems I was knitting together sufficiently well to be released back into the wild to continue the healing. So on Saturday afternoon I was wheeled through this big hospital, which I had never actually seen, to the huge revolving front door and out into the back seat of our car.
I won’t go into much detail now as to the post-hospital part of this story. Suffice it to say my wife and I were invited and accepted an invitation to stay at a friend’s house for as long as we would like. They were snow-birding it in Arizona and their house was empty. The idea was that this house was a one-story and I wouldn’t have to climb the stairs that I would have to at my own home. We enjoyed their hospitality for a week after which I grew too homesick for my own “stuff”, my own environment, and we at last moved back home.
I could go on and on now about how life is both the same yet utterly changed after moving home. How our dog that was reported to have missed me terribly suddenly recovered her equanimity after my return and caught up on her naps by my side. How the pain in my chest was less every day and my stamina increased commensurately.
And now I’m faced with the dilemma on how to thank all of you. How do I say thanks to everyone involved in literally saving my life? The uniformed guys in the rescue squad, the myriad of supremely talented doctors, nurses and other medical staff? The ambulance drivers, wheelchair pushers, the food guys who brought my meals? Even the guys and gals who cleaned my floor every day and always had a smile and hello to the sick old guy in the bed?
To my son Tony and how by seeing his dad so sick was able to face a lot of his own fears and overcome them. I am pleased and surprised at his accomplishment.
And last but not least, my family and friends who supported me as they were able. By their visits, their flowers and cards, their calls and their many, many cheerful and encouraging comments on social media.
And in a special category by herself, my wife Judy. I am confident that I wouldn’t have made it through this ordeal without her calm support and forever-loving commitment to me and to my ability to overcome this latest obstacle in our lives. I was daily surprised at her abilities to cope with the situation, to say just the right thing to calm my nerves, to comfort me just by being there and to save her darker hours for times when she was out of my sight. I honor her, bless her and know I couldn’t have done nearly as well as she did and continues to do.
So to all of you, mentioned or not mentioned, thank you. Be aware you all helped pull this ol’ guy through his latest little adventure. Please come by some time and say hello. Pick up the phone and do the same if you can.
Know that you all are appreciated and loved.
Thanks again…
