Wondering where part 1 is? It’s right here.
Welcome back to the anti-climatic end of my therapeutic misadventure. Moral of the story: if you can walk into McDonald’s, say “the usual” and they get your order right, you can save the ambulance co-pay by just driving yourself directly to the ER.
All the symptoms were gone. Except for the tubes and wires, and the narrow,
I went from relief to feeling like The Boy Who Cried Wolf to just running a round in circles between my ears, wondering what was happening to me. Then I noticed that there was a TV in the room. I switched it on figuring I might as well watch something rather than keep racking my brain.
I found a documentary on the Nazi party on the History Channel. (Do they have any other kind of programming?) That got my mind off possible horrible things that could happen, and onto horrible things that had already happened.
I was admitted and held overnight for observation. Turns out they had found elevated levels of one my my cardiac enzymes. With Baby Momma home taking care of Evie, she could only visit me briefly and that because—and for this we’re very grateful—Grandma Shelly was staying with us to help. I ended up spending most of my time in the hospital by myself.
By midday the doctors had determined two things: one, they were keeping me for another night. Two, what happened to me was that the artery expanded during the angioplasty on Friday collapsed and, well, hilarity terror ensued.
So, no, I did not have a heart attack. However, as far as I was concerned, I was still staring down the barrel—as it were—of open heart surgery. I spent that afternoon engaged in one of three activities: anxiety over the surgery and the long recovery, watching Law & Order, and watching The Mentalist. (I got caught in two of those “one-episode-leads-right-into-another” loops, as they tend to run on TNT.) No matter was I was doing, I could not escape a persistent feeling of dread and the sense that I was somehow very fragile and could go at any moment. Fun times.
The next day, they finally sent me home. In the days since I’ve been running a gauntlet lined with blood pressure cuffs, specialist co-pays, and more prescription drugs than I ever thought I’d have to take before the age of 70. My cardiologist referred me to another physician that may be able to succeed where he was unable to. Because my blockages are in secondary arteries, I have the luxury of exploring several avenues before cracking my chest open becomes the only option. In the meantime, I have occasional angina to deal with, and the challenge of getting in better shape despite it so that my body will be better able to tolerate whatever surgical intervention is necessary down the line.
Coming home from the hospital to Baby Momma and Evie made me really happy. There’s nothing like thinking you’re about to die to make you appreciate living. As Nietzsche wrote in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, “Only where there are tombs are there resurrections.”
A more apropos proverb might be “After enlightenment, the laundry.” Feeling all warm and fuzzy inside is all well and good, but life continues. Garbage needs to be taken out, diapers need to be changed, and the siren song of Chipotle needs to be resisted.
Failing that, the alternative is having this particular lesson repeated once again, and I can’t keep walking through the raindrops forever.
Oh, and for good measure:
“Boy, was I an idiot.”
