The past two weeks have been kinda hard to forget. On the evening of February 23th, I headed to the ER with chest pains. I thought I had overworked myself. The pain ended when I sat down at the ER reception desk and checked in. What the heck I thought, I drove myself here so I might as well get checked out. The ER cardiac doctor admitted me and decided to do blood work and scheduled a stress test for the next morning.
Come morning and he came in with a long face and told me the blood chemistry wasnt good, and a stress test wouldn't confirm what he thought was wrong with me. So off I went in an ambulance to the main hospital and a heart catherization. I was more scared in that ride than I ever was jumping out of airplanes at 300 feet in the dark in full battle gear. The ambulance driver drove like a maniac. The EMT had white fingers from holding on so hard!
So I'm now in pre-op and I'm figuring after that ride, what the heck, get some camera work done, maybe a stent or two and all is well. I'm loopy during the procedure until the doctor who's about 3 feet away leans over to me and whispers ... "Stan, Its worse than we thought - you need a quad bypass'.
"Wow!" I thought. "I've just outdone my dad !" (He had a double bypass in the early 80's). Funny what anesthesia does to you. The more logical me told the doctor to go ahead and schedule it. Four arteries blocked 80 to 90% doesn't give a guy much options.
Five days later I'm again in pre-op, this time for the bypass. No problem. 97% success rate. I'm not going to be a 3%er. Sarcastic me thinks "Well if you dont make it you won't have to do your taxes !"
Six hours later I'm in post-op. My brother, my son and my surgeon are there. I'm loopy and to this day I don't remember anything. My brother says the doctor turned to me and asked me how I was doing. I respond "Darn! Now I'm going to have to do my taxes!" That darn anesthesia!
Five days later I'm home on restrictive duty. No lifting, no driving, no nothing. For a month at least before I can start doing something. Good thing for armchair railroading. I've got a huge number of railroad books and magazines to keep me occupied during my recovery. The railroad is 12 steps downward, and I'm not allowed to do stairs.
But it does give me time to do my taxes !
