SHAKING HANDS WITH DEATH – Part 3:
The Angioplasty Begins: The Cardiologist arrived from the other hospital, and started telling everyone what he needed. More medical staff showed up soon after, and the room was insane … just like on TV … short tempers demanding this or that device or assistance, people yelling out my vital readings, and I got a brief glance of the operating room door with people in green outfits, head caps, and face masks bopping in and out. A scene from Chicago Hope.
Are you going to put me to sleep?: I didn’t need to ask, but I was told to keep talking and stay alert … so, I started asking about what they were going to do, and what I would feel. “No, Mr. Whitney, we are not going to put you to sleep. … Can I call you, Jim?” … “Please call me Jim … but why in the hell am I not going to be put to sleep … I can’t take this pain anymore.”
The Heart: “You won’t feel a thing. First, we will localize your groin with an anesthetic and then run a catheter into your Femoral Artery (The Femur Artery is like a major super highway from which your other arteries branch away.)… Your arteries do not have sensory nerves, so you will not feel anything … I will run a probe up to your heart … and … When I get inside your heart, I am going to ask you some questions.”
At first, this statement made sense in the circumstance … he wanted me alert while probing my heart so I could answer his questions, such as feeling relief when a blockage is cleared. In another sense, his question had an eerie connotation of a spiritual quality … as though the questions were going to cut right into my very soul.
He was there: I saw the doctor put on special goggles with hi-tech lens … like those used for military night vision – or a scene from the Borg … so he could look through the device that carried the signal back from the probe … he then inserted the probed through the catheter (about 4 inches long) that was protruding from my Femoral Artery. “I am moving up your artery now … I should be into your heart in a minute … I can’t move too fast.” … “Take your time Doc, I’m not going anywhere.”
It all got blurry: By this time, I had been in a full scale heart attack for over 2.5 hours … filled to the brim with morphine … a great pain killer that only made a marginal difference in this major heart attack … somehow, taking mental notes, trying to be alert, and definitely cooperating fully with these kind professionals was helping to take my mind off of this leg breaking pain every two or three heartbeats. … Then, I heard him say something about making it to the blockage and giving instructions about injecting dye and something about angioplasty and a stent … then … I passed out … I never recall being asked questions while he was inside my heart.
Wake up Jim, wake up: … “We are all done. How do you feel? Any pain?” These were the softly stated questions from a kind young woman standing near my head. … “What? … Well, not like before … I feel some discomfort, like I got tackled in a football game … but basically, I feel a lot better … I take it I didn’t die.” … “No, you are very much alive, and your vital signs are looking very good.” We do need you to urinate … but you are not to move your body for the next 24 hours … she then takes a plastic bottle with a large opening curved up in some design intended for convenience, but obviously to my engineering brain it was the perverse design work of an idiot … She grabs my penis, stretches it a little, and places it into the bottle … turns and looks at me – her eyes gleaming over her face mask – and says, ‘Let’s have it.’
Intensive Care: I had to be immobile until my Femoral Artery could have the catheter removed. And every device and monitor known to science was in some way strapped, glued, imbedded, or otherwise attached to my body. The most fun device was a new state-of-the-art color screen monitor showing my heart rhythm, rate, blood pressure, etc. … like having a computer monitor next to me … less the keyboard connection and DSL line to link onto JWD.
Nurses constantly bopped in and out, taking blood, injecting morphine, giving me pills for lower blood pressure, etc. They even woke me up at 2:00 AM to give me a pill so I could sleep … ahhh, yes, some things about medical professionals never change … and of course the ever constant demand to give them urine, interrupting me every 2 minutes to see if I did the pee pee … no privacy, no sense of dignity or boundaries … no, my whole world was in total control of these great people … and I had nothing to say about it.
Tuesday: Things were looking up, Femoral Artery catheter removed, I could stand up, but still in pain, tired, and floating on a cushion of morphine … but … I managed to focus in on NBC Dateline … it was at least well done as it could be for a 30 minute program including commercials.
Wednesday: I was finally able to make few phone calls to family and friends. I called Alan and Julie Feuerbacher and asked they let you all know that I was in the hospital. Then, in addition to family, many of you called, and I really appreciate that.
Medical Prognosis: The doctor basically stated that I am a walking contradiction. I had a major 5 star heart attack with all the trimmings, and close to death timing … 17 occlusions in my heart arteries varying between 25% and 80% closure of blood flow … yet, my readings for cholesterol, etc. were like minor traffic tickets compared to most who are like felony bank robbers. Total cholesterol should be below 200 for the average person … the doctor said that he sees averages of 400 to 600 count when people have big time heart attacks … but mine was at 217 when admitted, and by Friday, I was under 180.
He wants to do a quadruple by-pass in 6 to 8 weeks from now … but is open to discussion, perhaps some kind of combo package of alternative treatments to clean out my arteries. So, the long-term program begins. He was surprised that I was ready to check out by Friday … and he said that for having a major heart attack, that lasted over 3 hours, I had minimal damage to my heart … he said that I can thanks my lucky stars. They ended up using my charts for students at Loyola University because I went all the way to Pluto with pain and heart attack, and got back to Earth so fast with little measurable harm.
Spiritual Prognosis – The Meaning of Life: A near death experience is not uncommon … a close call on a busy freeway … a bullet whizzing by in a shooting … and much more are all everyday events … any number of factors could make the difference between life and death … sometimes we realize these when they happen, and sometimes, we do not. The difference is that we have some control over these external events … we can avoid certain dangerous areas, and drive defensively, etc. But, with our body, death is inevitable, a certainty … so our control is limited to try and maintain some quality and increase longevity.
As stated in part 2, I did not suddenly feel like I was going to live … and I did not have any long white tunnel with a kind voice calling me … rather, my near-death experience was the compassion of a fellow human being who gave a damn … who was giving more than just service, but was giving from the heart … He did not know me. We did not discuss what religious or political views we might share … no, this was something deeper and more profound in our human experience … it is the bond that ties us together, a bond bigger than death … bigger than fear … bigger than pain. What was that?
Is it Love? I believe that love is a major part of any human interaction, as are hate, fear, courage, kindness, cold heartedness, etc … There is no way that these kind people could love me as someone they knew, someone they were personally involved with everyday … but …
What I discovered is that as humans, we do have a part of our nature that goes beyond our physical life … it is a dimension in the abstract that we connect with one another that transcends any and all barriers, superstitions, religions, political views, age, education, experience, knowledge, race or whatever … it is the bond of life.
Together, we are in a constant war with death.: It starts the day that our father’s sperm all raced for the egg … and those of us who are here alive ... well ... we made the first race … and life is a series of races whether we like it or not … we shake hands with death everyday … any number of events could take our lives … and we live with the certainty that one day, death will take us … yet life itself continues on in a constant struggle against all odds to come back and survive … the winter gives way again to spring … and when we are aged and close our eyes, a new human is born who is just starting their own part in the cycle.
What happened to me on Monday, 5/28 was not unique, new, or particularly interesting (Except for the scary and fun stuff) … I am just one of billions who have been there and done that over countless ages. Granted, the experience was rather concentrated and extremely painful … and greatly affected me … but beyond a few words from me to others, each person finally has to shake hands with death for themselves.
Finally: This common bond between us as humans can and often does grow beyond the basic struggle to live, where the abstract takes root, where friendship and love grows … and in this short existence we have on this planet, in this life … it is worth every moment, every struggle, every ounce of pain to have been alive and shared in the common bond of humanity. On 5/28 I did not discover or find Jesus, but I did find many people who are brothers and sisters who saved me … and others who called and cared ... through all their unselfish eyes, I got a glimpse of what I would like to call God.