Story-Teller
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- Feb 22, 2009
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Do You Believe in Angels?
This past week I suffered a heart attack. Now you have to bear with me because I also suffer from short term memory loss. Another little gift given to me from another problem that placed me in the hospital.
Just like any good story there has to be a Beginning, a Middle and an End.
Back up to 6/04/07. After three days of my shoulders hurting and some of my chest I figure out that I’m having another heart attack. This was like a snowball rolling down a hill. Every minute the pain was getting worse. I had no idea of time, distance or anything else that was going on. I don’t remember the ride, being taken out of the ambulance. I remember beeping, people with mask on. I didn’t care what happened, even if it meant that I went to sleep and never woke-up. How I got to this point, pain can be the only answer. I remember a machine spinning around me and hearing someone say hold your breath, OK, let it out, Each time I held me breath my whole body would start to heat up. Not a little, a lot. I’m not sure of which happened first. I remember being asked to hold my breath or blow it out and after I did all the pain was gone. That was the last thing I remember until waking-up in the CCU (Critical Care Unit).
All the people zipped to and fro performing their task with machine like actions. I didn’t feel like a person any more. What I felt like was part of that machine and it was their job to keep that machine running properly. The only time they really saw me was when I would press the call nurse button. Then I felt like I was upsetting them because they had to come and empty my urinal. I guess they weren’t used to that because 99% of the people on that floor were either in commas or so out of it that they didn’t know where they were. I had three bags of fluids being pumped into me and every time I moved an alarm went off. They come in and move my arm back down and walk back out again. One nurse come in and said don’t worry about it because after 11 or 12 she’d come in and fix things so that the alarm wouldn’t go off again. Around that time she did come back and unhooked the bags from my IV and turned the machine off. I thought great, now I’ll be able to sleep, Wrong, house keeping came in with the buffing crew. They started buffing the floors all night long. Instead of sleeping I was awake for over 24 hours.
The next morning a doctor came walking in and looked at my chart and smiled at me. She introduced herself as Dr. Wood. I told her I was sorry but I didn’t know who she was. She just smiled and said no wonder, with all the pain I must have been in that I didn’t recognize her. She was one of a few doctors that attended to me in the operating room. She commented on the fluids being removed and at the readouts from the other machine, I was doing fantastic. She said she wouldn’t be surprised if I left late that day or at least by the following day. She placed her hand on mine and told me to rest and have a great day.
Later that day I was awakened by the doctor that had done my heart work. He came in with another female doctor and they checked me out and as they were leaving he said I was doing good and I should expect to go home in four or five days. I called the doctor back and told him that another doctor had been in and told me I might be going home that day or the following. He asked me the doctor’s name. After telling him, he said there was no doctor with that name at the hospital. He also said that I would be staying in that room for my stay. I told him I didn’t feel I should be taking up a space that might really be needed. He agreed and had me moved to the regular patient care unit.
After being moved I developed a pain in my left foot. The doctor was called and he called another doctor in and they examined my foot and said that during the operation a piece of plack must have been scrapped off and gone down into my toe. Both my wife and I were worried because my foot was white as a sheet and hurting. Being me I thought amputation. The two doctors shook it off and left.
By the time I was moved to the new floor my foot had become so painful that I had to push the button for the nurse. She came in and agreed that the left was much colder than the right. She checked all the doctors’ notes and said if it bothered me enough I could get a pain shot. She came back in two minutes and gave me a shot in the IV. It was like magic. You couldn’t have counted to ten before the pain was gone. She said that it was also written that I could have a sleeping pill and two other medications, only if I ask for them. So, since the pain was gone my youngest daughter to massage my foot. She did and when the nurse came back with the rest of the medication I took it. I was feeling calm and out of pain. I told my wife and children to go on home and get some rest. I would be OK until tomorrow.
As the days went on I just kept getting better and better. My full stay was five days. Upon my leaving I ask for Dr. Wood and the nurse that had helped get me through the five days. And to my surprise they couldn’t find either person by the names I was given.
Angels or an old mans imagination? Your call, but I believe in Angels…
--- Copyright © 2007 Richard Causey
This past week I suffered a heart attack. Now you have to bear with me because I also suffer from short term memory loss. Another little gift given to me from another problem that placed me in the hospital.
Just like any good story there has to be a Beginning, a Middle and an End.
Back up to 6/04/07. After three days of my shoulders hurting and some of my chest I figure out that I’m having another heart attack. This was like a snowball rolling down a hill. Every minute the pain was getting worse. I had no idea of time, distance or anything else that was going on. I don’t remember the ride, being taken out of the ambulance. I remember beeping, people with mask on. I didn’t care what happened, even if it meant that I went to sleep and never woke-up. How I got to this point, pain can be the only answer. I remember a machine spinning around me and hearing someone say hold your breath, OK, let it out, Each time I held me breath my whole body would start to heat up. Not a little, a lot. I’m not sure of which happened first. I remember being asked to hold my breath or blow it out and after I did all the pain was gone. That was the last thing I remember until waking-up in the CCU (Critical Care Unit).
All the people zipped to and fro performing their task with machine like actions. I didn’t feel like a person any more. What I felt like was part of that machine and it was their job to keep that machine running properly. The only time they really saw me was when I would press the call nurse button. Then I felt like I was upsetting them because they had to come and empty my urinal. I guess they weren’t used to that because 99% of the people on that floor were either in commas or so out of it that they didn’t know where they were. I had three bags of fluids being pumped into me and every time I moved an alarm went off. They come in and move my arm back down and walk back out again. One nurse come in and said don’t worry about it because after 11 or 12 she’d come in and fix things so that the alarm wouldn’t go off again. Around that time she did come back and unhooked the bags from my IV and turned the machine off. I thought great, now I’ll be able to sleep, Wrong, house keeping came in with the buffing crew. They started buffing the floors all night long. Instead of sleeping I was awake for over 24 hours.
The next morning a doctor came walking in and looked at my chart and smiled at me. She introduced herself as Dr. Wood. I told her I was sorry but I didn’t know who she was. She just smiled and said no wonder, with all the pain I must have been in that I didn’t recognize her. She was one of a few doctors that attended to me in the operating room. She commented on the fluids being removed and at the readouts from the other machine, I was doing fantastic. She said she wouldn’t be surprised if I left late that day or at least by the following day. She placed her hand on mine and told me to rest and have a great day.
Later that day I was awakened by the doctor that had done my heart work. He came in with another female doctor and they checked me out and as they were leaving he said I was doing good and I should expect to go home in four or five days. I called the doctor back and told him that another doctor had been in and told me I might be going home that day or the following. He asked me the doctor’s name. After telling him, he said there was no doctor with that name at the hospital. He also said that I would be staying in that room for my stay. I told him I didn’t feel I should be taking up a space that might really be needed. He agreed and had me moved to the regular patient care unit.
After being moved I developed a pain in my left foot. The doctor was called and he called another doctor in and they examined my foot and said that during the operation a piece of plack must have been scrapped off and gone down into my toe. Both my wife and I were worried because my foot was white as a sheet and hurting. Being me I thought amputation. The two doctors shook it off and left.
By the time I was moved to the new floor my foot had become so painful that I had to push the button for the nurse. She came in and agreed that the left was much colder than the right. She checked all the doctors’ notes and said if it bothered me enough I could get a pain shot. She came back in two minutes and gave me a shot in the IV. It was like magic. You couldn’t have counted to ten before the pain was gone. She said that it was also written that I could have a sleeping pill and two other medications, only if I ask for them. So, since the pain was gone my youngest daughter to massage my foot. She did and when the nurse came back with the rest of the medication I took it. I was feeling calm and out of pain. I told my wife and children to go on home and get some rest. I would be OK until tomorrow.
As the days went on I just kept getting better and better. My full stay was five days. Upon my leaving I ask for Dr. Wood and the nurse that had helped get me through the five days. And to my surprise they couldn’t find either person by the names I was given.
Angels or an old mans imagination? Your call, but I believe in Angels…
--- Copyright © 2007 Richard Causey
