Thursday, May 1, 2008

Home Again, Home Agin

Well, the hospital is a hell of a place for the sick. My instructions were to come in at ten A.M. with an empty stomach. By eleven I saw my nurse who told me a wonderful rhyme for the first of May, which is, sadly for us, snowing and very cold. The rhyme is: "Hooray hooray, the first of May, outdoor sex begins today!" That did it for me. The fact that I had waited an hour, fasting and pissed off about it, vanished in an instant. I have terrible veins, tiny and rollers. But she hit one on the first try, but since I'm on blood thinners made one hell of a mess as she changed tubes. They hooked me up to the constant EKG thingy, pulse ox thingy on the finger and a blood-pressure cuff that kept a constant read going. Pulse was high--141 today, but oddly not as high as yesterday. You take your good news where you can get it. Pulse oxygen is normal. Well thank god for small favors. Then there I stayed wired up and beeping for two fucking hours, until the cardiologist could get to me. Once he came in I was told that if they found nothing bad with the little camera they were going to shove down my throat to get a closer look at my heart (looking for blood clots), then they would shock me with the paddles to try to reestablish normal rhythm. Good new, bad news. No clots. Three times shocked with the paddles and no normal rhythm. But I love that Versed. No memory of any of it and still, an hour later, a little buzz. So it's three more prescriptions, and the next round of tests to look forward to. It could be much worse. I could be drooling and brain dead.

18 comments:

Life As I Know It Now said...

You arebeating me in the sick as a dog department. Jesus! How do you put up with that crap? Well, I guess good drugs help ;~D
Take care of yourself.

Ghost Dansing said...

yeah.... then there's the whole drooling brain dead possibility. i see you point.

why did you get paddled?

Utah Savage said...

They were trying to reestablish normal rhythm. Paddling for rhythm sound a little musical, but there was nothing remotely musical about this paddling and this rhythm. No luck with the reestablishing anything but the stuttering fibrillating. But on the bright side they did find a hole in my heart with the camera down the gullet and looking around. I hear they use a teflon patch to repare these things these days. Next time I go in it will be under general anesthesia and not the lovely drug I got today.

Utah Savage said...

Oh shit, Ghost. I should have answered the "Why did you get paddled?" question with the simple and probably true answer, Because I was very very bad.

Ghost Dansing said...

hehehe....

Stella by Starlight said...

Would valium help?

:-)

Petrosexual said...

What would help is if she would throw away her fags. But not one of the legions of doctors, nurses, counselors and therapists who are in attendance to her have suggested that, apparently.

Distributorcap said...

yes take care... and i hope it goes well

Randal Graves said...

Or there's the post-drooling and brain dead part where you actually are dead and in The Hell of Waiting Rooms where you wait eternally for the doctor while able to read nothing but People magazines from 1985.

Glad all is better than that, at least! Pop those pills and stay groovy.

Vigilante said...

Glad you're back in circulation, Utah!

Stella by Starlight said...

Petro? Go fuck yourself.

Utah, dear, I hope you're doing OK. I'm thinking about you and hope you're feeling better every day.

TomCat said...

Utah, that does not sound like fun. I bet the doc had fun giving you a paddling though! ;-)

On drooling and brain dead, if that happens, contact Bush. He'll put you in charge of an agency.

Big Yellow Forehead said...

Wow, I hope that you have a quick and speedy recovery!

Blank said...

So, did that paddling hurt?

Petro, stop sniffing the gasoline.

Utah Savage said...

Thank you for your good wishes and such. Petro, If I didn't know better I'd think you actually want me to live. Do you live to give me shit? I have to tell you Petro, I got no lectures. Not even suggestions. My lungs are clear, so are my sinuses. I have no cancer anywhere. I do have a genetic time bomb, so to speak, but it isn't smoking related. But why waste your time here when you have so much work to do at home. Write that blog. You can obviously write. So do it. And if you're going to worry about anybody, worry about the young who smoke. Jesus, I've been smoking for fifty eight years. I'm still fine.

K McKiernan said...

So glad you are doing well... So sorry you had to go through such a shitty procedure.

Funny how bad situations bring out the best (you) and the worst (Petro) in people.

Can you enjoy food now? What are you eating?

Take care.

Blank said...

How are you today?

TomCat said...

Are you feeling better?