Three things that you don’t want to hear:

1- Congratulations Mr. Harper on the Conservative Majority
2- Yes, this is the Canada Revenue Agency calling …..
3- You are the Poster Child for a Coronary Bypass.

Blogging is for me like a journal or diary. Captain James Cook did not write about breaking his arm in Bonne Bay in Newfoundland the day before it happened. But I was anticipating writing about a successful stent and the fun I had getting it, how I would recommend it to anyone, and how I was back on track for my Resolution Run. In fact, I was worried about how to maintain this blog once I was “fixed”. The universe did not unfold as I wanted. My heart has blockages that would have made the East German border patrol proud. So I am back on the conveyer belt waiting for a meeting with a surgeon, getting scheduled for the procedure (procedure sounds better than being sliced open like a pan of Jiffy Pop popcorn)


My angel guy told me to pray for three things: love of family and friends, freedom from fear, and acceptance. That’s what I did and is what I have received. The first two items I got in abundance. I am not surprised about the first but am a bit surprised about how well number two has worked out. The acceptance part is a bit like a brand new iSomething from Apple that is wrapped in layer after layer of impossible to tear open , hard to cut, tough plastic. You can see the thing in there, but it is work to get to it.


The day at the Ottawa Heart Institute was pretty interesting. It started at seven in the morning and went on 12 hours exactly. After getting into an attractive but very buttock unfriendly hospital gown I got settled into my little cubicle and met my nurse and my two (TWO!) cardiologists. They told me about the day and then my nurse prepped me, shaved me, I consumed a week’s worth of Plavex, and got hooked up to the saline IV. The IV goes drip after drip after drip after drip into your arm. So were does all this drip drip go? I am not sure of the exact route, not being a doctor, but I know where it ends up. You unplug the little IV dripper thing and go off to the washroom. I learned two things. 1) the battery on the IV is shot. It alarms after about a minute and it is hard to pee when the alarm is going off and a nurse is banging at the door. 2) It is very easy for the back of your gown to open up while you struggle to wheel the IV dripper thing around.

I was sort of scheduled to go to the lab for my angiogram at about nine or so, but, this being a hospital, with sudden onsets of crises and so forth I did not get in until about eleven. It was pretty cool, the drugs they give you are kind of funky, and the first disappointment was not really getting a good screen shot of what is happening with your ticker. Of course that first disappointment paled with the announcement that they could do nothing further today.

I was wheeled into a recovery room where they apply a gigantic clamp to the groin where they has to make the incision. My wife has described mammograms to me, so for the record I have no complaint. The nadir was having a sudden onset of cold sweats and nausea. You can’t lift your head for about five hours after the angiogram (neck muscle is attached to back muscle that is connected to thigh muscles that, when wiggled could turn your incision into your own Scarlet Old Faithful) so I brought my problem to the attention of the authorities because I figured that I could be at risk of the grossest puke ever. They asked if I felt anything else and I replied that I saw a vision of a Globe and Mail headline “Leafs Win Five in a Row” . They immediately medicated me and all was fine, but they kept pestering me about my vision.

I got wheeled downstairs after about an hour. The clamp was now off, but a five pound sandbag was in its place, with the instruction not to lift your head or move your right leg for the next four hours. You are encouraged to drink lots of fluids and that is a bit of an art, but you soon learn how to pick up a glass from the side table and move your head to drink. You pee in a little hand held urinal and I learned another disadvantage to being poorly endowed.

My wife had the worse day. She worked on work stuff, lounged around the waiting rooms and her big treat was Tim Horton’s coffee. They don’t mind visitors but to perhaps not really encourage people to camp out, there are no chairs in the day unit.

I was up on my feet by six , got a few visits from the cardiologists (bear in mind they were there before me and still there at six), got some cleaning up from the nurses (blood and dye stuff) , a small collection of booklets and I was out the door by seven, stopping only to get Tim Horton’s Swiss and Hams for my wife and me.

It appears that the ride ain’t over yet.