Had a BIT of a scare about a month ago, when I, (or rather my body), decided it would be fun to have a heart-attack quite a serious one too, by all accounts.
I was rushed two hundred kilometres to a specialist hospital, known imaginatively as The Victorian Heart Hospital; only been open for about a year, has 206 beds and numerous operating theatres all specifically for matters of the heart, near Melbourne. I was taken, on my stretcher, up and straight into, one of their operating theatres, where the most wonderful thing happened!
A job which just a few years ago would most likely have meant opening me up and getting into, and hacking at the most valuable equipment I own, and then making me bed ridden for some weeks. In my case they just sat me in a sort of chair in the middle of the room in front of an enormous arm with a box on the end of it, which hovered, somewhat hopefully I thought, over my chest, while a surgeon came and sat next to me.
He then proceeded to tie my arm to a shelf in front of him, make a tiny, one centimetre cut in my wrist and slide what looked very much like a simple piece of wire, into the artery lurking there. He then started pushing this wire up the artery until he arrived at my heart, (he knew he was there because the box I mentioned was in front of me, turned out to be an x-ray camera), which he could control to show him where he was and what he needed to do, in and around my heart!
About ten minutes later, (or so it seemed - I was well away on morphine at the time, so my timing may not be too accurate), He said something to the effect of "That's it then", and he was finished.
He told me he had used a ‘’balloon‘ to get rid of the main, (partial thankgoodness) blockage, and checked a few other arteries on and feeding my heart, which all seem in not bad condition considering the fact that I‘m eighty-nine years old. And I was finished! I
spent a few more days in the hospital, just to make certain all was well and then off home to Yarram, to take it easy for a month or two, what a marvellous excuse for doing nothing for a while!
This little adventure proved one or two things to me, things I’d never given a thought to until now – you get a fairly severe pain in your left chest and you likely feel a bit physically sick too – RING FOR AN AMBULANCE! Minutes are literally important at this time, and the paramedics would MUCH rather be called out on a wild-goose chase, than have a patient leave it roo long, so they’re too late to be able to do ANYTHING to help!
Try not to panic; screaming, shouting, hitting people or throwing things at the wall don’t help at all, either you, or the help that is trying to save your life. Lie on your back, stay still and breathe deeply and slowly, which all helps to calm a terror-stricken heart, so it can concentrate on trying to do it’s job.
Don’t eat or drink anything. It may be necessary to perform some sort of procedure on you, once they get you to hospital, and you bringing up a Big Mac or something right in the middle of their efforts, is not going to help!
© 2024 Brian Lee
