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Diciembre 15, 2007
Memoir - Chapter 2: The Hospital
Near death was one afternoon. Ongoing life – so far, a bit longer.
After the doctors got my heart under control I wanted to go home, but they wanted to know what was going on. We talked with the cardiologist about what had been happening and they explained more clearly what had been happening. Essentially my heart had been short circuiting, only the ventricles had been working, not the aorta. So only half the function was really going on. My body recognized the lack of blood pressure and pushed my heart for more – so it raced and raced. Again, a normally conditioned heart would not have survived for 3 – 4 hours at that pace. Ironically the passion for cycling had not only created a life threatening situation, it had saved my life as well.
The doctors now assume that the episode of Altitude sickness in Colorado this summer was really another arrhythmia. We knew that my dads fatal heart attack at 45 was also a similar arrhythmia. (we were not able to have an autopsy done at the time – longer story). Later as I was in the hospital, my heart did it again, entering the same high rate short circuit. However this time it lasted only six seconds and then jumped out on its own. This wasn’t just my stupid dehydration on a long hot cycling day. It was a bigger reality, the investigation became more critical – and they kept me at Memorial until it was figured out.
I was amazed at all the guests. The first few days I was in critical care, which has very restrictive visiting hours. But after my pastor dramatized the happenings in his sermon there were a lot of visitors who made it in, and more who could not. Friends spent the whole first night with Marialice in the waiting room, even though I assumed she had gone home. Remember…. I felt fine! Most of my fellow elders flashed their elder badges and got by security with a confident bluster. But one pastor got sent away in a moment of confusion. The staff asked me if I wanted to see him, but I thought they were asking me if I wanted them to call one of the pastors of New City Fellowship. Strange, I thought, pastors have already been here… No you don’t have to call. So they sent Jim Pickett away… This pastor has led a men’s group that has significantly impacted my life over the last 2 years and I was wanting to start exploring the emotions of this event with him. But we missed that opportunity. That would become a pattern.
Doctors spent the first part of the week waiting for the drugs I had been pumped with on Saturday to work their way out of my body. Any tests needed to be focused on my true heart condition, rather than any drugged state. After waiting all day Sunday for the doctor to come, it was really depressing to be told on Monday that he couldn’t do anything and that we’d have to wait more. On Wednesday Dr Salerno ran a test of the electrical system. He saw the place in my heart where the short circuit had occurred and was able to reproduce it easily in the controlled environment of the test. Sometimes cardiologists can burn off the offending cells – actually physically fixing the problem. He could not because of the location. He was also concerned about the physical structures of the heart and wanted more tests.
Thursday Dr Cohn did a study of the plumbing. An arteriogram. It was pretty cool to see the pictures of my heart muscles an arteries filling with dye and standing out clearly on the screen. But the results of the study were not so cool. They discovered a weakness, a cardiomyopathy of the heart. This was the reason I was prone to the arrhythmias. This was a sickness that could be getting better or worse. No one knew.
That same day Dr Salerno implanted a defibrillator in my chest. A computer the size of half a yo yo that would keep track of my heart. If it started acting up it would try to use a pace-making function to trick it back into normal. If that didn’t work it would give my chest a kick. He wanted to give me some independence, to let me go hiking in the woods and not feel like I always had to be 20 minutes from a hospital. But he also gave me a prescription – heart medicine that I will probably take the rest of my life.
I came home on Friday – 6 days after entering the Hospital. I had gone in on a 92 degree day and I left in the chilly clear fall. It took me a few days to want to get out of the house, a week to drive again, but I was back working (from home) on Monday. I was recovering. Physical recovery was pretty quick. There are other aspects taking a much longer time.
| By rob | 10:29 PM
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