The horror...the horror

First, I want to apologize for sporadic postings. And further apologies for the lack of lighthearted material. There's not too much humour in serious medical problems. Well, maybe if you dislike the victim. And if that's the case, here, I'm glad to have provided a few grins.

A lot of people totally disregard the information about healthy living generally and heart health specifically. I was one of them--even if I was doing well in recent years. As boring as this subject may be, I beseech you to read on. I won't tell you how painful a heart attack is. There's nothing new there. What I want to explain is that the aftermath, at least in my case, was far, far worse than the symptoms that took me to the emergency room in the first place.

You may be tough enough to withstand a mild or medium heart attack standing on your head. In fact, I endured mine for a second day before heading to the hospital, as I wasn't sure the pain was heart related at first. But everything that comes after arriving at the hospital is enough to make a grown man cry.

So, I'm having chest pains that keep coming in waves, going from discomfort to fairly substantial pain. Soon after arriving at the hospital, they take my vitals (BP and ECG), and my BP was very high (186 over 120) but I guess the ECG did not show conclusive evidence of a coronary problem. That would explain why they made me wait three full hours before I saw a doctor. Another round of vitals and a blood test shows that my BP was now a ridiculous 205 over 141. If you're unfamiliar with the scale, normal readings are about 120 over 80.

I won't go into the ugly details of the hellish week that followed, but I do want to give you a small taste:

Every 8 hours they poked me to take blood, anywhere from 2 to 6 vials each time. Sometimes, it took as many as 3 tries to get a good insertion. 3 or 4 times they moved the IV lead to a different vein. For the first 2-3 days, I was on an IV drip. They maintained an IV lead until minutes before I was discharged "just in case".

I was on a heart monitor the entire time. For a couple of days, I had to pee into a urinal on my bed. The rest of the time I had to get disconnected before I could drag my tired ass to the bathroom.

Sleeping was almost impossible.

Constipation was yet another discomfort.

Honestly, on about the second day, I was ready to die and came close to signing myself out. Of course, a doctor heard of my request and came by to tell me that he has the power to hold me if he had reason to believe I would do harm to myself. I guess leaving the hospital without treatment for a heart attack is tantamount to doing yourself harm.

The food wasn't of great quality to begin with, but when my appetite returned, the coronary care unit menu was enough to starve you. Breakfast alternated between a single piece of whole wheat toast and a muffin.

Now, we're getting to the fun part. I was shaved in the groin area by a nurse. If that's not your idea of fun, maybe having a catheter stuck into an artery in your groin and pushed all the way up to your heart and spraying basically a poison dye so that they can take x-rays of your major heart arteries is. They give you some vile-tasting stuff that I feel is the worst tasting crud I have ever had the displeasure to swallow, that is supposed to protect your kidneys from the dye. The best part is yet to come.

You need to lay flat on your back without making the slightest movement, especially to the leg they used for the angiogram, for a full four hours. That would be difficult enough under the best conditions, but the pain in my lower back slowly increased and then went to my kidney. I asked the nurse for some pain reliever which she brought and I took, but the pain increased faster than the pills could take effect and about 2-3 minutes later, I literally whimpered that I couldn't stand the pain. She came and administered morphine into my IV drip. While there was a slight improvement almost immediately, the full pain did not subside until about 15 minutes later at which time, gratefully, precious sleep came.

I didn't mean for this post to be so long. I'll give a few more highlights probably tomorrow and then explain the reason for posting all this.

How much?

How much would the following cost?

2 emergency room visits
30 blood pressure tests
20 blood extractions
60 blood tests
20 electro-cardio grams
2 angioplasty procedures--one stent implant
1 nasal packing procedure, subsequent removal
24/7 nursing care for 1 week
7 days and nights in hospital
1 nasal swab analysis
1 rectal swab analysis
10 consultations with various doctors, including cardiologists
30 pills of various sorts (one of which is $10 a pop)
transportation back and forth between two hospitals
3 visits with a psychiatrist
follow-up visit with family doctor
follow-up visit with cardiologist

I probably missed something, but the above is enough to make my point.

Answer:
It depends on where you live.

For the 75 million Americans who have little or no health insurance, the above costs associated with an "average" heart attack might run over $100,000. I have to estimate the cost because as a card-holding communist of Canada, the hospital did not present me with an invoice. My comrades paid a few cents apiece to cover the entire cost just as I have been doing through my taxes for anyone else who has been unfortunate enough to have experienced a heart attack. The thing is, I never missed whatever part of my taxes went to paying for other people's medical costs. I wouldn't want anyone to be saddled with costs like this. It's enough to give you a heart attack.

To my American friends: I hope you all have insurance and I wish you all good health.

By the way, my son (living in Dallas) told me this evening that Obama has levied a huge tax on tobacco. It was enough for my son to vow to quit smoking as soon as his current supply runs out. Yes, we can!

Apologies

to all my reader.

I hope you understand and forgive my extended absence considering that it was a heart attack that kept me away. I arrived hjome just 30 minutes ago after driving myself to the hospital a week ago. I have a lot to catch up on in the coming days--getting meds, paying bills, seeing docs, etc., so I'm not sure how much time I'll have for writing here. But the blog will go on...whether you like it or not.

Good health to you all.

Take this job and shove it!

This is not the time to make such a rash statement. You may not get another one for some time. So, for those of you lucky enough to still be employed, here are some helpful hints on how to hold onto your job. They are presented in a light-hearted manner, but they are sound advice, just the same. Unfortunately, you'll have to watch an ad first.

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Editor's note: Uhh...forget it.