One Hundred Twenty Five Hours that changed my Life - Part Three - The Hospital ER & OR
One Hundred Twenty Five Hours that changed my Life - Part
Three - The Hospital ER & OR
I warmed my rig up and started
for the hospital. The winter time here
in Alaska
gives us a little different ambiance than that found in the Lower 48. We are in our cold dark period and on this
day it was minus 10 degrees outside and at seven o’clock in the morning it
would be over three more hours before the sun would rise over the mountains to
the east of Anchorage . We are approaching the winter Solstice where
we only get about five and a half hours of daylight. The sun is up around 10:30 in the morning and
sets just before 4 in the afternoon. The
rest of the time we are in darkness making for long cold nights here during the
winter.
On this morning traffic from my
house to the hospital was extremely light with only a few cars making there way
along my route. I had seen a moose
eating beside the road as I approached the Hospital by the University of Alaska
Anchorage
I pulled into the emergency
parking lot and there were a few spaces open close to the walk up to the
emergency room entrance. It felt cold as
I made my way from the car to the door and there was no one milling around like
other times I have been to the hospital when my youngest daughter was ill. It would sometimes amaze me that so many
people would be at the hospital on any given night both around the normal
hospital grounds and in the area of the emergency room. It is normally a busy place being the main
hospital for Anchorage . There are several ones here, one a Native Hospital
Monday, 12-03-12 7:10 am Arrived
Providence Hospital
I slowly made my way to the check
in desk for the emergency room and there was one person being helped who was
checked in before me. The admittance
clerk quickly finished with him and sent him to triage to be looked at and
turned her attention to me. She asked
for my driver’s license and asked me what I was coming to the emergency room
for. I told her I was having chest pain
and things quickly changed into a hyper active mode from the staff.
7:11 am Vitals taken, Heart Rate 114, Blood Pressure 188/127
The admitting clerk quickly took
my vital signs, put me in a wheelchair and wheeled me into the triage room # 1.
7:12 am I was told to stand up, two nurses helped me strip off all
my clothes while getting a gown on me and inserting two IV lines into me, one
in each arm. A nurse above my head was
placing a nasal cannula in my nose giving me oxygen while another nurse quickly
placed electrodes on me and an EKG was run for a few seconds where Dr. Watkins
intently was looking at the strip. He
looked up at me very matter of fact posture and said I was having major heart
attack and proceeded to walk out of the room.
I had several things run through my mind at that point almost
simultaneously which was, the doctor just told me one of the most horrible
things I had ever heard and walked out on me.
The second was “Oh shit” this is real and no one was there with me so if
I dropped dead who would know. The mind
goes through so many things in that instant and I am sure my emotional level
went through the roof as I digested the fact that I was having a major heart
attack.
Dr, Watkins was only out of my
room long enough to tell someone just outside the triage room to call the Operating
Room and alert them we would be there in a couple minutes to be ready. He then came back over to me and
compassionately told me that the heart attack was the ‘real deal’, that I had
at least one 100% blockage with probably more and that I was very lucky with no
symptoms that I did not just drop over going into cardiac arrest as many people
do. He told me the widow maker scenario
and why I should have called an ambulance to bring me to the hospital and not
drive myself. I was now starting to
think I may have made a completely foolish move thinking I was ‘ok’ and it was
not a big deal.
He and the nurses quickly had me hooked
up to all sorts of things and ready to be rolled down the hallway to the OR
where who knows what was about to happen.
I can honestly say I was scared at this point and started to realize
this was not a good situation for me to be in right now, alone and not sure
what I was about to go through behind those bid closed doors in the room with
many bright lights.
7:15 am Asked if I could make a phone call to alert someone where I
was when everyone in the room, (5 people) shouted “NO” in unison. Dr. Watkins came
back over to tell me what was happening that it was serious and the hospital needed
permission for me to go to OR for the procedure. I told him yes and they started rolling me
out of the room down the hallway to the operating room.
7:20 am As we left the room one of the nurses told me it was probably
too late to have any effect but told me to open my mouth as she gives me a
Nitroglycerin tablet under my tongue.
She then says if I give her 2 phone numbers she will make the call to
alert someone that I am in the hospital.
I give her Scott and a friends numbers to call as I am rolling down the
corridor. It seemed like what you see in
the movies lying there looking up at the ceiling tiles with the light quickly
flashing by above me in a rhythmic fashion.
There was a controlled chaotic
rush to get me into the operating room as everyone made their way into the room
and turned me over to the staff in there.
I was wheeled over to the table and moved quickly onto the new bed as
new nurses started working on me.
7:21 am Now I am in the OR being prepped for the procedure. I somehow had my phone in my hand which I
kept but was worried about my glasses so I handed them to the nurse to put with
my things but kept my cell phone in my hand under blanket. I could see this large screen television
above me on the left side and it was there for the doctors to see what they
were doing during the procedure. One of
the nurses was shaving me, yep down there as they were going to be during the
procedure in my groin. (As a footnote
here, I had heard about and debated being shaved in this area but I had never
considered it up unto this point in my life.)
The nurse worked one side and then the other as the doctors were getting
their items ready below my feet at the end of the bed I was laying on. Dr. Watkins was talking with me when one of
the nurses again took my blood pressure and asked the doctor if she could give
me some morphine to calm me down and reduce my anxiety.
7:30 am to 9:00 am Procedure – Angioplasty and stents
installed
This is where my story may get a
little fuzzy or I may embellish a little more than I should as once the
morphine kicked in I could not or did not care what was going on around
me. They gave me enough to knock the edge
and apprehension away from my pain threshold but not enough for me to pass
out. It was actually quite nice as that
feeling of being scared was completely gone now and I was an observer in what
was happening to me. I can say
wholeheartedly that after having a narcotic it has a tendency to change your
view on drugs. I felt great at that
point with no pain, apprehension of anything going on around me and I was
talking with the doctors.
Dr. Watkins was talking me about
the procedure of what he was doing, what was happening in the OR and what I
should expect shortly. It all sounded
pretty surreal but was also intriguing at the same time. I was lying there with this giant screen above
me and he was describing that he was going to insert a wire into my femoral
artery and go up through it into my heart.
Now it sounded like the movie from long ago, “Inner Space” with Dennis
Quaid. I am not sure if I really felt
anything going up inside me but I want to think I remembered it and could feel
something or a pressure going across my chest.
They entered my right groin in two places and worked his magic inside
me.
They told me to look at the screen
as they were about to inject the dye so they could clearly see my blockage and
what needed to be done. They would shoot
the dye and decide what procedures to perform on me. I was told that I was about to feel a warm
flush rush through my entire body as they injected the dye into my system. I was told it would feel like I needed to pee
but it was just the warm fluid going within my body and that I would not be
urinating when I felt like it was. I
think I started to laugh as the heat started making its way through me and I
was overcome with the warmth and crazy sensation I was feeling at that moment. It was totally different from anything I had
ever felt before as the warm/hot sensation came from the inside to the outside
all through my body.
I could see the screen light up as the dye made its way around
my circulatory system and they were telling me that I was 100% blocked on one
and about 80% on another. They were
going to do a angioplasty and heart stent procedure on me to open the vessels
back up. The balloon catheter in the
angioplasty procedure would open when it was blown up and would squeeze the
fatty deposits opening up the blood vessel improving flow. The balloon is then deflated and withdrawn
which is only part of the procedure to be done.
A stent is then inserted to keep the blood vessel open by a mechanical
means. The stent is a small braided wire
which flexes itself open once installed and keeps things open and blood flowing
properly.
Feeling no pain and curious about
the procedure I talked a bit to the doctor and he gave me additional insight on
why it was stupid for me to drive myself to the hospital and warned me if I
ever had something going on and needed to go to the hospital I needed to call
an ambulance to bring me that even being driven in by a friend or family member
is not correct because if something happened the paramedics what the equipment,
training, and meds to start work right then and not have to wait until you
finally arrived at the hospital.
He joked and asked me if I had
concerns about what I could or could not do in the coming weeks as I
recuperated. I told him I had three
questions and would probably think of several more during my time at the
hospital especially when the meds wore off.
The first question was if I could still drink coffee since it was what I
drank most of the day along with glasses of water. I was told that it would not hurt me but I
would need to swap out my sugar for honey and use a little less creamer if
possible. # 1 was ok so I was happy with
his response. The second question was
could I still drink wine in the evening as I usually had a glass or two
occasionally if someone was over or on vacation. He again told me it would not hurt me and
that about 8 ounces was actually good for people. # 2 was ok and I again was happy with what he
said. The third question I had for him
was how long it would be before I could have sex again and if I would need to
watch out for anything. He laughed and
told me that I should notice a ‘big’ difference since my body would be getting
its full blood supply going to every part of my body and I might for some
reason think I had become years younger with the increased circulation. # 3 was also a winner so I think I can still
have a pretty good outlook on things and with the changes in diet and exercise
I will be better than ever.
Things seemed to be going pretty
well as I was watching them open the blockage and insert the stents but things
seemed to get a little vague at this point and the next real thing I remember
was being in the recovery room around 9:00 am.
What I did not know until a week or so later when I read the OR report
of the events that morning was that apparently had some irregular arrhythmia
(heart beats) or stoppage and that they inserted a temporary pacemaker up
through my groin into my heart to get the rhythm back to normal and to monitor
its stability. I guess I stayed in the
OR longer than I thought and they must have put me out since I did not have any
idea this happened until I read it later.
I guess this might have been more serious than I first realized at the
time in the hospital.
End of Part Three – Up next
9:00 am to 2 pm Recovery room and more . . .
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