A Day in the ER

My excuse for not writing much this week? Spending a day in the emergency room.

Usually when people ask me how I’m doing, I respond by saying, “Well, I haven’t been in the hospital for seven months!” (or however long it’s been.). This is because it seems that every six months I have some sort of crisis. Usually it’s my heart medication that does a good job most of the time, but once in a while the electrons get the upper hand and send my heart into overdrive.

Sometimes people call their hearts “tickers”. Unlike most people, my heart really does tick. In fact you can hear it if we are sitting in a quiet room. There it is…the noise that resembles a dripping faucet. That comforting sound is produced by a mechanical mitral valve that I had installed in 1999 during my second open heart surgery. In the first go round, the highly regarded surgeon I chose tried to repair the valve, but it didn’t work. I picked someone else to go in and make it right.

I come by this problem honestly, with an uncle who’s had the same operation and by my mom who had two tissue valve replacements. She died in 1998, just months before my own cardiac travails began. I always wished I could say, “Mom! I understand what you meant—look! I’ve had the same thing done.” I’m sure she knows and one day maybe we’ll compare notes, but when I get to that point, who really cares about such things?

Here on earth, I’ve had many 911 calls and ambulance rides to the hospital, but they have diminished in frequency since my pacemaker was installed a couple of years ago. Unlike my valve, it doesn’t make any noise, but just sits there quietly working. Someone at work likes to call it my “bottlecap” since it looks like one sitting under my skin.

Yesterday, due to some problem with medications interfering with each other, I spent a pleasant six hours or so in the emergency room. Pleasant, because there were so many familiar faces there, though it’s pretty sad when you know the nurses and lab techs by name. A CAT scan was negative, other tests showed a possible infection, but in the end they sent me home. I have appointments with four different doctors over the next two weeks for various issues, so I should be in good shape soon.

Fortunately, my regular doctor looks out for me and takes a personal interest in what happens to me. What other doctor gives you his home and cell phone numbers? Years ago I started calling him by his first name instead of “Doctor”, which is the sort of relationship we have. One time he had to call me about test results or something and he pretended to be a carpet salesman. I hung up on him. He called right back and played it straight, though I felt bad once I recognized his voice.