Thursday, January 03, 2002 6:56:00 PM
Alright!
Don't be too hard on me. I was released from the hospital a few days ago. My birthday to be exact, December 31, 2001. At three o'clock pm just about the time I walked, short of breath from the cold and from my symptom into the emergency room a East Suburban Forbes Regional Center East, or whatever it is now called, three days prior. I thought it was pneumonia. It was something quite different.
See, I knew I was in trouble when I walked out of the Best Buy with my brand new Yamaha Sub Woofer and a couple of deep sounded DVDs. I could hardly carry the box to the car. I was winded like a hundred yard dash and I hadn't walked much more than fifty feet. I struggled, drove home and called the Doctors office. They said, Son, hie yourself up to an emergency room. Three hours in the waiting room and I was dragged back to the emergency floor, where began a series of punctures, pricks and pokes that lasted for a three day period. I admit it. I was optimistic. Thought I would end up going home with an antibiotic to stop the encroachment on my lungs. It is now about eight o'clock in the evening and the ER doctor is saying something about Congestive Heart Failure and I am definitely not going home.
Think about that name for a minute. I must first tell you that I know absolutely nothing about diseases and their names. I never watched ER and I was more interested in the quirkiness of St. Elsewhere. The doctor says, with a certain glibness, evidence of congestive heart failure, which makes my you-know-what that is as equally ignorant as my brain start pitter pattering more quickly. For those of you like me in the dark, Congestive Heart Failure does not exactly mean that your heart is failing. It means that the heart (your heart - my heart) is not pumping enough blood to your system. It is not a good thing, but couldn't they call it Congestive Heart Condition? So liquid builds up in various conduits to and from the heart, spills out into you system and finds itself in your lungs or legs or stomach. Mine was in my lungs and thus the shortness of breath. Pretty common symptoms it turns out. Classic!
So they start me on antibiotics, because the x-ray indicates some evidence of pneumonia and then they give me the devil's drug, I'll probably spell this wrong Lasix (Okay I looked it up) which makes you urinate frequently and long. Not really a social drug is it? So after a couple liters and more plunges and pulses I was admitted to a room around eleven PM. Worried, not at all tired, hooked to a pump that put nitroglycerin in my system at a specified drip rate. I now know how my computer feels after I have hooked up several peripherals. The nitro gave me massive and grand head aches. "Oh," said the nurses, "headaches are good!" I rolled my eyes and swallowed gratefully the Tylenol proffered.
Of course it wasn't pneumonia or a viral infection that enlarged my heart. After stress and cardiograms and irradiation it turns out that sometime in my life I had a "silent" heart attack which damaged my left ventricle. The chamber that pumps blood out to my body. My heart is weak and needs help. I also am diabetic, have high blood pressure and, although not terrible, high cholesterol. Healthy, eh?
The upshot is that I now face a life style change. Not really a problem. I was trying before by exercising and eating less. Low sugar, low salt (by the way all prepared food have salt) and low fat. But I think the thing that disturbs me the most is that I have become a "pill person" and those medicine names that sounded to me like the names of Arab terrorists are becoming all too familiar. Soon I will be exchanging tips with everyone about my secrets to beat my poor battered body into a healthy ruddiness. I think it goes with the territory. What next, yellow pants, green jersey and white shoes?