Another morning and here I sit in my easy chair, cup of tea by my side, fire going in the wood cookstove, Darrell still resting in bed and me waiting for the first light of dawn to peek over the horizon and show its face through the window. Although today is a Monday, for Darrell and I we are going to treat it as a Sunday. That sounds a little odd but our Sunday’s mean a somewhat easy work day followed by a good joint of some sort in the oven for Sunday Dinner and a day to be Thankful. Today we will have a nice roast ham.
This past week was one of ups and downs as far as emotions go. After Darrell told me of some discomfort in his chest during a morning walk, I Mother Hen that I am called his cardiologist office in Bend to relay the symptoms and express my concern that he was still having some anginal pain after placement of two stents at Thanksgiving time. We had to go to Bend on Wednesday for another doctor appointment so the cardiologist office fit us in early that morning. It was subsequently decided Darrell needed to go back to the cath lab for possibly yet another stent to be placed in his heart. A long day in Bend was followed by a dash home so as to get animals situated, fed and watered as we needed to head back to Bend on Friday for his procedure.
This time the procedure was planned and we knew a stay overnight at St. Charles Hospital was in order so came prepared with snacks for me, our own skim milk for Darrell and books to read. Yet no matter how one tries to prepare for their dearest partner to go in through those double doors to have a catheter inserted through a vessel in the groin and threaded up into a heart, no matter that one knows the procedure is nowadays considered “routine”, there is always anxiety. The “What If’s?” start to creep unbidden into one’s mind and spread their nasty tentacles of doubt throughout a normally rational brain. The fact that one has some knowledge of the cardiac system: from structure to electrical pathways to the intricacies of the plumbing system of this great and vital organ, somehow does not always offer solace. In fact, this knowledge often leads to more of those “What If’s?”.
There are times when my EMT training and the desire I have always had to learn more about our wonderful body as opposed to just the bare minimum, has come back to haunt my mind sometimes. Yet I have to remind myself that same knowledge has stood me in good stead on many occasions. Had it not been for my comprehension of cardiac issues, my training to recognize “Sick versus Not Sick”, my understanding of the workings of the great human body, my dearest Darrell may not be with me right now. For he, like so many of our patients on the ambulance, has not read the medical textbooks. He does not always present with the classical signs and symptoms as the textbooks tend to suggest. His initial discomfort over eight years ago before having heart bypass surgery was just plain old “gas” which as soon as he relived himself of a jolly good burp, miraculously disappeared. Had it not been for me accompanying him on his daily walk on a spur of the moment, seeing him stop to burp, questioning him and checking his pulse… my mind snapping into EMT mode… the placing him on a heart monitor back at the house and noticing Funny Little Beats (FLB’s), the subsequent trip to see his doctor in John Day which led to a visit to St. Charles and open heart surgery. He really did not fit the textbook at all!
This last couple of months has seen us back and forth to Bend with the result of Darrell having two stents placed in his right coronary artery and just this past Friday two more placed in arteries on the left side of his heart. To say it has been a somewhat stressful time would not be an exaggeration. The “What If’s” have been piling up like mad and yet all is well, a grand road lies ahead of us.
Ah… as I glance out my window I see the first light of dawn peeking through the pine trees. Another day is upon us, a glorious day to illuminate that grand road ahead… 