26 December 2017

well, that was a rush . . . .

"come for the flu; stay for the heart attack," one of the emergency room physicians quipped --- i came home from new orleans on saturday with a lousy cold or flu, i thought, and spent most of sunday in bed --- when my thermometer read 101, i was not concerned, but when it got to 104, i imagined myself becoming delirious or something, and decided to take myself to the emergency room, via the martha train since i am a block from one station and the hospital is a block from another (the 911 option having never crossed my mind for some reason) --- after a 20 or 30  minute wait amongst some people in a much sadder state than myself, i got back to be triaged, as they say --- after drawing bodily fluids for lab work to figure out what was wrong, they sent me out to the waiting room again, where after a few minutes i proceeded to experience what was finally diagnosed as a non–ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI), including awful pain, vomiting, cold sweat, etc, that continued until i got a shot of morphine --- it took x-rays, a CT scan, many needles, much blood work and what not before they decided to do angioplasty sooner rather than later, which is how my big present xmas morning turned out to be a new stent, to replace the ten-yr-old one that had gotten sorta gummed up or something --- turns out my thermometer is messed up, but its failure (or possible operator error) put me in purty much the best place for a cardiac event to occur --- better than the middle of bourbon street or the top of the temple of the sun at teotihuacán anyway --- (the cardiologists assure me that our planned trip to mexico city next week can go forward) --- in the meantime, i am finding this to have been a very centering experience





2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. I recently saw a commercial on TV about degrading stents, and now this. Glad your body could give you some warning signs. Stay "centered" as you say, and let me know if you need anything. I'll be around through the New Year.

B.

Anonymous said...

thank goodness for faulty thermometers.