Return from Washington Adventist (7/12/2008)

I have have been thinking about posting this e-mail for a long time.   I sent it to family and friends back in 2008.  A few of you have seen it already, and may even remember it.  It is now a part of my life story and history.  More than ten years have passed since then, and I can now reflect on how this has effected the way I live and my outlook towards life.  Perhaps you will find something interesting.
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Dear Folks,

I am very happy to be back home this Saturday evening.  Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. As many of you already know, the fact that I had to stay overnight at the hospital is an indication of the fact that they indeed found some blockage in the heart and some work had to be done. The news, in short, is that two stents were introduced into the arteries feeding the heart – one in the first obtuse marginal artery (OM1) which was about 95% blocked, and another on the Right Coronary Artery (RCA) which was about 70% blocked. A drug-eluting stent was used in each case to try to prevent the arteries from re-closing. I feel fine right now, but have to take it easy for the next few days so that the femoral artery through which they inserted the catheter can heal completely. My daily Asprin and Lipitor dosages going forward have been increased and I will probably have to continue to take this medication for life. I also have to take Plavix, an anticoagulant, for a year.  These are the consequences of heart disease. But I will be back to my activities as soon as I am given the green light. It would seem that I have been given an extension of sorts, and I should make the best use of the additional time. I feel fine.

You should probably not read past this point if all you wanted were the facts, and you are not interested in the gory details of the trip to the hospital. In fact you should not read past this point if you have a tendency to get distressed in general. An overnight stay in a hospital, as some of you know, makes you a humbler person. You are basically out of your comfort zone and for the most part you are dependent on others. It does not help that you wear a gown that is open at the back. If you happen to be connected to an IV line you also cannot move around easily without help. You depend on the nurses for almost everything. You could feel out of sorts even if you are physically OK.

The catheterization procedure itself went smoothly. It was interesting to be awake during the process and be aware of what was going on, feeling no pain, and hearing what sounded like distant conversations – with an occasional request from the doctor to hold my breath. He informed me of what he was going to do before he inserted the two stents. I was done with the procedure and back in the recovery area before noon. I had been given an anticoagulant drug at the completion of the procedure to prevent clots from forming around the stents. Because of this, in order to avoid issues with healing, they waited for a couple of hours before they pulled the sheath (from which the catheters had been inserted into the femoral artery) from the area of the groin. As soon as the sheath was removed from the groin, I had one of my famous fainting spells. I felt the coldness creep in and I told the nurse who was working on me that I was going to faint. As I got knocked out, I saw the guy reaching for the alarm button. Code blue!

Apparently, I flatlined, and the guy kept pounding on my chest while applying pressure to the wound to prevent bleeding. I am told that I was out for about 15 seconds, and when I came to it felt as if I was coming out of a dream. (No, I did not see a white light.) I think I shouted – Where am I?! I saw a bunch of anxious faces in front of me, and one woman was holding my hand in a very reassuring manner. But I recovered quickly after that. I asked for some food immediately because I knew that part of the problem was that I had not eaten since the previous day. (And according to Teresa I was apparently also not well hydrated during the procedure.) I have experienced fainting spells every once in an infrequent while since childhood, and now there is name for this. It is called vasovagal syncope. Look it up. It has to do with bad signals being sent to the heart due to a process with positive feedback within the body. I used to think of my experiences in childhood as some kind of weakness on my part that could be controlled mentally. It actually is something that has a physical origin.

Anyway, because of the drama I had created, I was placed in the Cardiac ICU for the night. I got personal attention, but I had a hard time sleeping, one of the reasons being that I had to lay my right foot out straight through the night. This morning I watched the daybreak out of the window of my room on the fifth floor – with the blues and the whites and the oranges lighting up the early morning sky. I felt things were going to be OK. I was feeling strong. I felt strong enough to sing to myself, but for some absurd reason, tears would come to my eyes. (I suppose “Bridge over troubled waters” is not the best song in these circumstances.) But I had a good breakfast and lunch before Teresa and Christina were able to rescue me and bring me home. The unfortunate episode and the helpless feeling that goes with staying in a hospital are quickly fading into memory. I am feeling great right now. Lets see what the next challenge is going to look like.

Once again, I am very, very, grateful to all of you for all your good wishes and for thinking about me. I am touched, in fact my brain may be a little fried from a lack of oxygen (only joking, OK!).

Sincerely
kuria