Ring out the old, ring in the new.

He tells to get myself up onto the table and lie down. Now this table does not look like a table, there are no place settings and I would never use a sheet as a table cloth but I know what he wants. It isn’t much of a bed either, hard and unyielding.

The table sits in the middle of an oblong room which has a high ceiling with one wall of glass. Behind the glass I can see lights twinkling on expectant machines and the faces of people. I suddenly flash to the last cop show I had watched on television only a few nights before this. I was to be interrogated and the people behind the glass would be talking about how I had reacted and what did it really mean. Was I guilty or innocent?

The other wall has an array of cupboards.  The table on which I lie is large with no legs, just a massive motor looking support. Above and almost around the bed is a beige arm with a soccer sized head. This is the imaging equipment.

I have not seen the professional, the cardiologist, since my first set of tests well over six weeks ago. He had only spoken to me on the phone to say I needed to be where I now was. Worried this meeting too may be as fleeting, I had a number of questions ready to ask as and when I could. I did not want to interfere with his concentration nor did I want to be one of those patients who made a pest of themselves by muttering inanities.

The team start filtering in, first donning lead aprons to protect them against the X rays before washing hands for minutes on end and donning sterile gowns and gloves. The cardiologist leans over and says hello. He says he is going to have a look and see what is going on. I am really just one of many, I have not set eyes on him now for six weeks so our relationship is hardly deep but he is there to look after me and get things done.

I am very tall at 203 meters and he observes, “I hope our wires are long enough to reach your heart” Thinking that I thought that should have been considered earlier I take the opportunity to ask my first question.

“Why do you use the femoral artery rather than one in the arm?” I had read on Dr Google the arm was once used and still was occasionally. It seemed like a shorter route to the heart and might be an alternative if the wires were not long enough.

“They used to use the brachial artery but the femoral artery is bigger. It is a direct route up to the heart like a highway and that is what I use and what I am familiar with. Some people use the radial artery and I have on occasion but it is much trickier so unless you are doing them all the time it is not the approach to use.”

So I think, if the wires are not long enough, I am fried for today. So close and yet even at this stage possibly so far.

 Soon my robe is lifted and my groin area is washed in betadine, a disinfectant that when applied looks like instant tan, or shit. I mention this last aspect as you can get a fright when you find traces of it on your robe when you wake up. A large sterile sheet or drape is placed over the area and work begins.

“Just numbing the area with some local, a sharp pain coming now.” I think to myself, I am glad he did not use the “ Just a little prick “ joke. I suppose a guffawing convulsing patient is not a good thing.

“Can you feel it now when I touch it? Good, you will feel some pushing and pulling but you should not feel any pain.”

I can feel his hand pushing on the area and “things.”  I assume these are pieces of the equipment or instruments and are being dumped over my nether regions which are not anaesthetised. I hope he does not drop anything heavy there as I might jump!

“I am just injecting some dye it might make you feel a rush of heat and make you think you are wetting yourself. Don’t worry you will not be.”

Within a minute or so I feel the rush of heat like a rash over my chest followed by a very intense wet feeling heat around my backside as if a mild acid had been poured there. Quite disconcerting but I was reassured by his words about feeling you are but not actually doing so. Thankfully the felling passed reasonably quickly.

I can feel a tickling below the site where he is working where I am not numb.  I assume this is something to do with the wires the cardiologist is introducing into the femoral artery on the highway to my heart and the suburban maze of arteries once he gets there. I can see nothing of this and there is little sound except now the whirring as the imaging equipment starts to move.

“Take a big breath in and hold it….breathe away.” I suspect this is the universal language for any imaging worldwide as I have heard these exact words spoken now in three different countries.

The imaging head swirls about in its radiographic dance routine and the “hold it and breathe away” message is repeated a number of times.

“I have found a little time bomb here Shaun and we are going to stent it whilst we are here”

On which artery is that” I ask, “the left anterior descending?”

“Yes that’s it, we just call it the LAD”

“What about any others?”

“They are fine for the moment”

A nurse appears at my left hand side to access the cannula.

“Just giving you some antibiotics. The last thing we need is for you to get an infection and also something to relax you.”

A few minutes later I feel nothing so I continue to ask questions in order to find out some information whilst I am here with the cardiologist and to let them know that if they thought the medicine would relax me, it has made no discernable difference!

“So afterwards, is there any exercise that is bad exercise? You know, digging, chopping wood that sort of thing. I do live out in the bush.”

“You can exercise as soon as you get home in a day or so. You will be in hospital tonight but can go after twenty four hours. You can go back to work after a week but take it easy. We have made a hole in your femoral artery we do not want that blowing out. No heavy lifting. You need someone to pick you up as you cannot drive for two days”

“What sort of stent are you putting in?”

“It is a drug eluting stent. We do not want the stent to block off with a clot so the stent has medicine within it that helps to stop this. You will be on aspirin for life and “clthisiffyohpril” or Flavix for a year or so.”

 The first name sounded like he was trying to say a word and he had food in his mouth as I really could not hear it. I had at least its common brand name to check on it at a later date. I presumed it was a drug that stopped the platelets from being so sticky and therefore less able to stick to each other and form a clot.

I could hear him talking to the others around him. “It is a bit tricky as the lesion is between two branches. We have the choice of a 24 or a 26 and really we could use a 25.”

A few moments later and after a bit more whirling of the imaging machine head,

”There, that is in place and is working well. You were about 70% blocked but luckily we were in there in time.”

“ Nearly done just clipping off the artery in your leg where we have made a hole. You might feel a lump there for a time but it will slowly go and is perfectly normal. Do not bend your leg. We will get you to lie with your leg straight for six hours.”

Before I know it the drape is whisked away.  I am surrounded by people who roll me towards the left first whilst a board and sheet are placed under me. I am then whisked onto the waiting bed on the right that has been brought in close proximity to the table I have been lying on. Off to recovery, to recover from the procedure and recover more slowly from the shock that I now have an artificial “thing” inside my body that without which I might not have made sixty.