Once I’d committed to seeing the doctor I felt a little better. At least he could let me know that it wasn’t anything serious. I saw him on Wednesday, August10. I hadn’t seen him in a while and he told me I wasn’t looking too well. So much for reassurance. He sent me out for blood work, and a stress test. Holy crap, any reassurance would have to wait until I passed those tests. I made the appointment at the lab for Friday of the following week and the stress test two days before that. I never made it to the blood test.
The folks at the diagnostic center told me to wear gym shoes and loose clothes because I was going to be on a treadmill. Piece of cake. I thought I’d impress them with my excellent physical conditioning by wearing my skin-tight cycling shorts and showing that treadmill what I was made of.
As soon as I arrived for the test, I was stuck with about a dozen leads hooked up to an EKG. The doctor took a base line blood pressure and off I went. It was pretty cool because I could watch the monitor as I walked. My pulse was elevated as expected but I didn’t see any wild or erratic changes in the lines on the screen. I thought I’d aced it. Each time the treadmill got a little faster and a little steeper, the doctor took my blood pressure. 140/60 the whole way. Another reason not to be concerned.
At the ten minute mark the treadmill was getting steeper than I was comfortable with and my brisk walk was on the brink of a trot. Then I felt the jaw pain. When I told the doctor about it he quickly stopped the test and gradually brought the treadmill to a stop. I still thought I’d passed the test as my pulse quickly returned to normal. Then he said something that made all the lines on the monitor look like a seismograph on the San Andreas fault, “Go home, get a change of clothes and get to the hospital. You’re going to have an angiogram.”
I protested that I had a business to run, this was inconvenient, yada, yada, yada. He was adamant. What sealed the deal for me was the assistant. As she yanked the sticky pads off my chest, she looked me square in the face and said, “Don’t blow this off.” I swear she said it in my late mother’s voice.
Except for a couple of emergency room visits I had managed to avoid hospitals since October of 1963. I sure wanted to keep that record intact but two hours later I had a hospital ID bracelet and a room in Little Company of Mary Hospital. Shortly after that I had two IV ports in my left arm, was weighed, had another EKG, and was hooked up with dozen more leads attached to my chest that connected to a wireless transponder that sat in a pocket of my gown. Then came the first of what seemed like several hundred little tubes of blood taken from my veins. I was officially in the American health care system of the 21st century.
If there was any plus side in all this, the food was excellent: lasagne with garlic bread, salad, and ice cream. It was a far cry from that overcooked gray crap hospitals tried to pass off as food back in the sixties.
My wife, Judy, who had driven me, stayed through dinner and drank my coffee but I told her to go home when dinner was done. There was nothing for her to do. Besides she’d have to fill in for me at the store on Friday and Saturday. She’d need her rest.
Not long after she left, my kids started filtering in. Colleen and Kristen came first followed by Jim. Ed showed up last because he’d been all the way in Naperville. After the initial shock of seeing me all hooked up, they settled into the usual party mode that breaks out when they all get together. Fortunately, we were at the end of the hall because it got pretty loud in there. You don’t want to make a lot of noise in the cardiac ward, especially when you’re sure you don’t belong there.
Then Ed noticed the pizza joint across 95th street as he looked out my window. They all realized they were hungry and headed over for pizza and beer as soon as visiting hours were over. Not only did they not invite me but they didn’t even bring anything back. I found out later that Colleen’s husband had called wondering where she was. She told him she was across the street from the funeral parlor. Funeral parlor? I didn’t think I looked that bad.
They even posted a picture on Facebook of themselves enjoying their pizza. I was touched by their concern.
Then I was left to my thoughts about what would happen the next day. What if they find something? What if they don’t? What if they have to crack my chest open? Will the store survive without me? How am I gonna pay for this? What the hell is that noise?
What had sounded like the gentle flow of air from a cooling register over the window turned into an obnoxious roar in the silence after everyone had left. I turned off the air conditioning but the roar continued. Then I realized that the two galvanized ventilation stacks that terminated right outside my window were the culprits. These tubes, about a foot in diameter with coolie-hat tops, emitted what would make the night seem like an endless trip in one of the cheap seats behind the engines of a 747 on an all-night flight to nowhere. This, plus the thoughts pinballing through my head, the incessant beeping of the monitors at the nurses’ station down the hall, and the occasional wail of an ambulance approaching the emergency room added up to a lot of wakeful hours on a very long and lonely night. I passed it going from the TV to my books and magazines, occasionally turning everything off in a fruitless attempt at peaceful slumber. I got two hours if I was lucky.
But wait, there’s more. When a child is born in the hospital, they play “Brahms’ Lullaby” throughout the facility. It must have been a busy night in the delivery room because I heard it over and over, but not even that could help me sleep.
At long last, morning came and activity ramped up. Nurses came in to check this and adjust that. One came in to mark pulse spots on my feet. This would be important later. Another came in with towels, wash cloths, and some mega-antiseptic soap. She gave me explicit instructions on how to use it to wash my entire body from my chest to my shins, especially the groin area. At least I knew which of the three routes they were going to take to get to my heart. I thought the nurse was supposed to do this. I guess I need better insurance.
My regular doctor stopped by as did the cardiologist and the doctor who was going to do the angiogram. Three of the hospital’s pastoral ministers came in to pray with me and offer communion. I took the prayers but communion was out because I was not allowed to eat. The saline IV was to be my only sustenance until the procedure was over.
The last pastoral minister introduced himself as Brother Brian. After some small talk I asked him what order he belonged to. He was in street clothes and it was hard to tell. He told me he was Precious Blood which is the same order of priests that taught me in college. He said his brother had studied at the same college, starting the year after I graduated. We had much to discuss because he knew many of the same priests I did.
That would have to wait, however. The activity ramped up even more as the hour drew near. It was after lunch, I was starving and just wanted to get it done no matter the outcome. Before long I was on a gurney headed for my destiny somewhere in the bowels of the hospital.
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