Heart Surgery

After a few weeks of waiting, I was summoned to a hospital in Santa Clara, CA. That’s about a two hour drive south from where we live. My original surgical appointment was for 8:30 am. A couple days before they bumped it up to 6:30 am. No problem since traffic would be nothing at that time in the morning. We awoke at 3:30 am, hopped in the van and Sheri slept the entire way.

I checked in and got my hospital bracelet. They brought me to my bed and I changed into my hospital gown leaving me free and breezy. After a little problem finding a vein (they forgot I was dehydrated from asking me not to drink anything since 10 pm the night before), they stuck me good and I was all set. Then they informed me that another doctor took “my” surgery room without permission and that I would have to wait 2 hours for it to open up. So, we got up two hours early for nothing.

At 9:30 the nice nurses informed me the room was ready and that it was time. My wife gave me a kiss (in case I died) then ran off to find some breakfast and do some shopping. The hospital was brand new and still smelled of paint. I was transferred to a very thin bed on wheels. They hooked me up to an IV and started giving me a series of injections meant to put me asleep. Nothing worked but I did feel a little light-headed. I could hear them talking about being amazed I wasn’t asleep and wondering if was safe to give me more. They decided to play it safe and leave me awake but groggy. I knew the next couple of hours would be real interesting.

Now comes the part not safe for children or conservative Victorians. Because they were entering my heart thru my femoral artery, my “region” needed to be prepared. This was a first for me, but since I was drugged, I didn’t care. I could feel them moving the furniture around and could hear and feel a Norelco working away. I knew this would lead to an interesting recovery.

My Stanford and Harvard trained doctor then gave me a painful and stinging shot of Novocain right in the groin. I thought that stuff wasn’t supposed to hurt. Again, the numbing medicine was not enough so when he started to stab me I must have reacted and he gave me a double dose. Then he pressed some sort of disk very hard onto the site. Shortly thereafter, I could feel a wire snaking up my torso and into my heart. It didn’t hurt but I could feel it. He then put two more leads in. The first wire was a pacemaker, the second was an electrical sensor, and the third had a microwave tip on it.

Then the real fun began. We warned me that my heart would start doing strange things. He was right. It started beating quickly, strangely, and in odd rhythms. Twice, they flat-line me and I passed out. Each time a nice nurse woke me up by digging her knuckles into my chest, “Scott, are you alright?” On the outside the Minnesota Nice part of me said, “Yes, I’m doing great!” But the in-your-face-honest Californian part of me was thinking, “Dear God, you just pressed a couple of keys on your computer and stopped my heart. That means dead! I wonder what my wife is buying at Target?” During parts of the procedure I was able to place my head at an angle where I would see the monitor that displayed my heart and the three wires inside. I could see the doctor was moving them around, sitting at his desk, with the use of a joystick. And the buttons he was hitting made my heart dance.

The entire procedure took a couple of hours. The doctor finished then the nurses took over. They cleaned me up, bandaged me, then scooted me over onto my recovery bed. They took me back to recovery and told me that they had been trying to call my wife but she wasn’t answering her phone. My wife still does not understand how to answer a cell phone or retrieve messages. She only knows how to call out and ask me, “Why didn’t you call me?”

I decided to take a little nap. An hour later my wife arrived wondering why she hadn’t been called. I looked at her, smiled, then fell back to sleep. They made me lay there, completely flat and immobile for 4 hours. They fed me a chicken croissant and two cans of cranberry juice. I kept waking up as about every 30 minutes they lifted my gown for a peek.

When my four hours were up a nurse took me for a little walk. She made sure I was stable enough to go home after all that sedative they gave me. I thanked the crew and they took me outside in a wheelchair. Game over.

I’ve now been in bed for a couple of days. I’ve discovered the joys of Gold Bond Medicated Powder. My heart hasn’t run any marathons without me and my leg and incision site are really sore. But all is well until the next medical adventure.

Walking on Water

A couple of weeks ago we created an 18" deep tank filled with a special non-Newtonian liquid with incredible properties. Run on the liquid and you don't sink. Stop, for even a second, and get sucked into quicksand. Enjoy the video!

Eeeeeeeewww!

Moments ago our very large cat struggled up onto our bed and sat for a second. As I sit in my special back chair next to my bed, the cat decides to stare at me. A few seconds later it decides to sit on my nightstand right next to my chair. It sits on my cell phone. But for some reason I think nothing of it.

When the cat tires of staring at me, he gets up and moves back over to the bed and lies down. I look over at my cell phone that has a polished mirror finish. Upon it I see the greasy donut-shaped mark of his playdough fun factory.

After typing this I am going to find the acetone, Lysol, and rubbing alcohol and give that tainted mirror finish back it’s luster, and me, my dignity.

Straight from the Heart, Part II

After I left the ER, the doctor said to make an appointment with my regular physician within the week to get a referral to a cardiologist. So I make an appointment and show up at my assigned time on Tuesday. But Now I’ve turned into an old guy because my appointment wasn’t actually for another week. Back to work I go.

So I called again and got an appointment on Wednesday with a nurse practitioner. I show up, give her my history and she says a referral is in order. So she looks on her computer and says, “Wow. They have an opening in a half hour. Would you like to wait?”

So instead of hanging out in a waiting room and exposing myself to all kinds of illnesses, I went to my car. I made a couple phone calls, listened to a CD, and fooled lots of people into thinking I was leaving, thus vacating a hard to find parking space. Tee hee.

I waited in a very long line of very old people to check in. It was the heart department. So now I guess I’m old. I gave the receptionist my club card then went to sit down. Just as my cheeks hit the seat they called my name. In I went. For the fourth time in a day I explained why I was here to the nurse. Then she weighed me (for the second time in a day). Amazingly, I had dropped 6 lbs in a half hour. It must have been from the exercise I had rolling up and down the window in the car.

In a couple of minutes the cardiologist appeared. He was a jovial man, perhaps from saving people from heart attacks all day. That must be a nice job. I again went over my heart history and he listened intently. He paid attention to me much more than my daughters or my wife. I wasn’t used to that.

He then said with great concern how he was going to send me ASAP to a Kaiser specialty hospital in Santa Clara about 3 hours away. He said I needed an aAtrial Fibrillation Radiofrequency Ablation. I would rather have Key Lime pie from Outback. What they do is stick a couple of wires up the femoral artery until they reach the heart. Then one of the wires shocks my heart into running fast again. They monitor what’s wrong and figure out how to fix it. Then they shock it into slowing down. Once that’s done they use the tip of one of the wires to make little burns on some of the nerves running my heart. That blocks the nerves from sending signals. Cured.

So now I’m researching everything I can on Atrial Fibrillation Radiofrequency Ablation, Paroxysmal Supraventricular Tachycardia, and Key Lime pie. But the more I research, the less I am excited about what I know. So, I’m done with the research. I will blindly place my trust in my insurance company and the people they’ve hired to stick a wire up my leg and burn my heart. On the way home I shall dream of the Key Lime pie in the fridge waiting for me.

I don’t have an appointment yet. However, I know the day will be filled with interesting stories. Stay tuned as I’m certain it will be a memorable event.