Tales Along the Senescent Trail
Brass Monkeys Again . . .
It really was cold. No wonder you always see brass monkeys hugging each other. Momsie and I clung tightly to each other and teetered out to the white Colorado. A thin reddish-yellow line of color blanketed the dark mountaintops as early dawn slipped toward day. The smell of woodsmoke drifted along the dense frigid air. I fumbled with the keys. My hands shook more now, and I don’t mean from the chilly air. I popped the door, clambered into the driver’s seat, and cranked Snowy up. With a quick roll of the starter, the engine barked to life as June struggled in through the passenger side and plopped down. Thank God for wide running boards on trucks!
After an hour-long trip, we bumped into an empty parking lot just in front of the outpatient center intake at the hospital in Gainesville. After dealing with the sleepy desk clerk, we rode the elevator to the second floor with our peel-off name tags plastered to our chests and flimsy hospital masks covering our faces.
I slipped into one of those annoying hospital gowns, you know, the kind that fastens in the back with no easy way to tie them together so your butt cheeks hang out for everyone to gawk at and admire. I was lucky. My tiny rear stayed hidden in the wide folds of the hospital skirt. I dropped my medicine bag on the tray next to a hospital bed and lay down, my cold hands draped meekly across my churning stomach. Why do hospitals have to always be so morgue-like cold?
From there we were pushed to the fourth floor to meet Dr. M.
“Hello Sir,” he said with a smooth toothy smile as we lightly bumped elbows. June exited to the waiting room and was surprised to see a magnificent panoramic sunrise of glowing orange, red, and purple skies. The nurses grabbed the hospital bed by the side rails and pulled me into the operating room. Dr. M. sat down next to my bed, took my arm, and gently patted my wrist.
The preop procedure surprised me. One startling aspect concerned the shaving of the privates. When I asked, how come? Dr. M. stated matter-of-factly that if the arm procedure didn’t work, they would have to go in through the femoral artery in my leg next to my crotch. I made some stupid joke about discussing job descriptions at parties and then fell into an awkward silence. The nurse didn’t even crack a grin at my attempt at humor. She aggressively slopped the cold iodine all over my inner thigh.
Dr. M. moved in close. “We’re going to get started now.”
I watched him lower the slender tube and impale the pulsing radial artery at my already numbed right wrist. The tiny catheter slipped in with hardly a twitch from me. The pain medicine made me start feeling a little loopy. I glanced up for a moment to where the tubing filled with saline solution connected to the transducer device. I felt just the slightest twinge. The uncomfortable electric hospital bed seemed to slowly fall away from under me. I gripped at the rails.
Dr. M. glanced up and smiled for a second. His smirk seemed a little mischievous to me.
“You won’t feel a thing,” he winked.
Then everything winked out.
*********************************************************************
Dr. M. called the whole procedure Angioplasty, and the technique is quite commonly used for both adults and children. The cardiologist snakes a hollow threadlike tube with a tiny balloon at the end up the blood vessel towards the narrowed area of the heart artery so that the doctor can use a procedure called fluoroscopy to see what’s happening to the heart and circulatory system surrounding it. Upon locating the blockage, the cardiologist may inject liquid contrast or “dye” into the blood flow to highlight the arteries and help the doctor find the stoppage(s). Once found, a guidewire traverses the blockage, and a balloon catheter pushes into the obstruction and inflates which allows proper blood flow through the artery again. Next, the drug-coated wire stent expands and provides a permanent tunnel for blood flow into the heart.[1]
********************************************************************
Next thing I know, I’m slowly blinking my eyes open. Blurry images float by like stumbling frames in a slow-motion movie reel.
I thought, what just happened?
A young guy in a nurse’s uniform stepped into the room. His name was Daniel, he said. He checked the needles and tubes which protruded from both my wrist and antecubital fossa better known as the crouch of the elbow. I had to stay prone and immobile for hours.
Night came. Dr. M. wanted me to stay overnight. June had gone home for the time being. Everything was really quiet when I started having trouble breathing. It’s like trying to catch your breath on every third breath. I started to panic a little. Shortness of breath was not something new to me as I had the same problem with the pulmonary embolisms in my lungs. I would take two breaths and then things would settle down a bit until I started to doze off. Then I would jerk awake and catch my breath again. This went on for what seemed like hours. When Daniel came in to check on me, I complained about it. He said that it was probably caused by a side effect from the Brilinta blood thinner Dr. M. prescribed for me after the treatment. He said the brain is fooled by the drug into thinking it needs oxygen when it really doesn’t need any.
“It’s quite common, you know.” Daniel said matter-of-factly. “We see it often in heart patients here.”
I asked him what could be done about it.
“Well, it’s mostly psychological so we could try giving you some oxygen, even though you don’t really need some. It should trick your brain into thinking everything is okay now.”
I said let’s do it, and he slipped the feeder tube into my nose. Unfortunately, as it turned out, it was still a rather bad night.
The hospital’s so-called bed, lumpy and elevated as it was, kept me awake most of the time. Coupled with the short breaths, I got little sleep. Daniel remained as sympathetic and helpful as his duties would allow.
Next day, I got to see my heart beating in real-time on a special ultrasound machine. It looked amazing—almost like a mini-thunderstorm inside the heart. At every beat, lightning flashed in a kaleidoscope of colors in the turbulence of my seething blood. It seemed unreal. The ultrasound technician said that they wanted to make sure everything looked okay before releasing me so we watched the beautiful tempests together for a little while.
Incidentally, I know you might think that I don’t respect the VA Health system from all my talk about things that have happened to me while in their care. But make no mistake, I do respect them. They have always been there when I needed them and have demanded very little in return. The VA Health Care System represents a great organization for the vast majority of veterans who would otherwise be without any health care at all. Additionally, the twelve-week community service heart rehab program they completely paid for after my release from the hospital turned out to be a success as well. I lost twenty pounds over that period and regained a lot of my lost strength from forced inactivity.
Nevertheless, even though the operation was a resounding success, I was really glad to see Momsie that day. We went over to the Longstreet Café for some tasty fried chicken and fix’ns. I also noticed that the Café had put General Longstreet’s portrait back on the wall. He lived in Gainesville after the Civil War and was greatly respected there, even if he was a Confederate general. He was an unusual man. I chuckled a little. So much for political correctness.
As we made our way back to the car, my daughter’s gift of a yellow get-well-soon-balloon popped out in the blustery winter air as soon as I opened the rear door. I jumped but didn’t catch it . . . and there was no pain. For a moment, I watched in envy as the smiley face swirled round and round into the big cloudless blue sky . . . and I smiled too.
[1] Angioplasty and Stent Placement for the Heart.” John Hopkins Medicine. hopkinsmedicine.org. Health. 2021.https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/angioplasty-and-stent-placement-for-the-heart.