Saturday afternoon greetings from the 5th floor of Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton! I just knew there were all kinds of HHW vibes coming my way and they certainly did the trick. What actually happened is that I had a heart attack brought on by a blocked artery (not unusual), but the artery was (is) torn below the blockage. That turned the attempt to do the cath in a quick-recovery mode (which was how they diagnosed) into the longer-recovery method to treat, with some very scary consulting in between.
Dr. Steven Jain is my new best friend and I'm very lucky to have been in Dayton when this happened. Not that there's anything wrong with the spiffy new hospital in Middletown, but I'm not sure they have the level of sophistication to have addressed the complication. I'd have hated to come here in a helicopter as a result of that consulting. One of Dr. Jain's retired colleagues just happened to be in the building and he was brought into the conversation and told Richard that he'd written a paper on this exact situation. Best of both worlds - young guy who knows the latest technology and an experienced mentor to back him up.
So, what they did was to insert a stent to open up the artery and let the blood flow that's restored repair the tear. But they couldn't do that through the wrist and prepared both leg entries, just in case, in order to perform the procedure. As DR der Brucer explained, I had to lie flat on my back until the ports were removed and then for 6 hours until they were sure the bleeding had stopped. It was then tricky getting up and the first attempt didn't go so well. But, by the time I left ICU last night, I walked to a wheelchair for transport. The nurses joked that not many people leave that unit vertical!
