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The Eclectic Pen - My Heart


By: Ronny S. (ronny)   + 7 more  
Date Submitted: 11/8/2007
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs » General
Words: 466
Rating:


  My doctor kept telling me I was sick. "You're sick," he said. What did he know.

I felt fine. Sorta. Other than the tightness around my chest and not being able to breath very much, I felt just fine. One night I was sitting on my sofa and my chest felt like an elephant was playing leap frog on my chest. Okay, time to do something.

So last week my doctor ordered a stress test and some blood work. He sat looking at the results of my tests and said, "you've had a heart attack." I said, "no way." He said, "I told you you were sick."

Next stop was the cardiologist. "You're sick," he said. "That's what the other guy told me," I said. "You've had a heart attack," He said. So he decided to do a cardiac cath on me. I checked in, they shaved me where grown men shouldn't have to be shaved, and off we went to the lab with my nekkid butt barely covered by a gown.

Now what they do is pump this purple dye into you and stick this tube in your groin and snake it all the way up to your heart so they can see what damage has been done. But first they give you some wonderful fluids in your I.V. to make you where you don't care if they cut your arm, leg, or head off. You just feel wonderful and at peace with the world. I sure did.

They normally take about 20 minutes for the procedure. Mine took 2 hours. They found three damaged arteries. Two of them were 80 percent blocked, one of them was 70 percent blocked.

The cardiologist brought me out of la-la land to ask me if he could put stents in me. I didn't care. I nodded yes. Then he gave me that wonderful solution again and off I went to dreamland.

Now that dye they use can cause kidney damage and me being diabetic was not a good thing. So the doctor only did two of the stents and brought me back from my dreamworld. He said we had to stop so we wouldn't mess up my kidneys.

As I lay in my hospital bed later, my son sat beside me. He said, "So how are you feeling, dad?" It reminded me of when I sat in the chair in a different hospital asking my own dad the same thing. Funny how some things come full circle.

So now I've had one cardiac cath, two stents put in, and I'm weak.

And I have to go back and do it all over again in a week or so. I have to suffer the indignity of being shaved and having that probe stuck in my groin again while they insert the third stent.

This has not been fun.


The Eclectic Pen » All Stories by Ronny S. (ronny)

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Comments 1 to 2 of 2
Silvercat - - 11/9/2007 9:09 PM ET
Hey, Ronny....all the very best to you!!!
Kate O. (BookWormElite) - 11/10/2007 8:43 PM ET
Sometimes we worry about the people around us and we don't realize out own pains and our own suffering. I'm sorry about the not so joyous procedure you have to endure, I cringe for you. Good Luck and God Bless!
Comments 1 to 2 of 2