Over the Hedge

After the nastiest blood-taking experience yet, I had a visit from Caitriona, from Cardiac Rehabilitation. She said there's no 'might need' when it comes to a bypass, went through what I should expect during and after the procedure, gave me tips about post-op diet and so on, and left me with a booklet to digest.

With the holiday weekend out of the way, things were really buzzing around the hospital. I had visits from members of the medical team and from the cardiologist himself, both of which gave clearer and clearer indications that I would indeed need to have a bypass.

The weather was still glorious, and I was glad to be able to make it down the corridor and out into the open air a couple of times, though the medical news made me feel more cooped up than ever. When Carl came in to visit we sat in the sun and discussed cancellation of our trip to Berlin (due on 18th June) and the practicalities of how I'd cope after what now seemed like inevitable surgery. As the day had been progressing I'd gradually resigned myself to thinking more in terms of 'when' rather then 'whether', since the medical word hadn't been promising about stents rather than bypass.

When Carl left I turned to the entertainment for the night, which in this case was North by Northwest. Great stuff, with its two iconic scenes of the crop dusting and the climax on Mount Rushmore. That brought me up to 11.00 or so, at which time I noted the following in my hospital journal:

Oh my God! It's 10.55 pm, and it looks very much as if there's been a death in the CCU. There was a lot of feverish activity in evidence earlier on, with nurses running up and down the corridor and rushing in here and so on. And now we've had a woman rushing hysterically in someone else's arms, shouting somebody's name and saying 'No. No. No!' It definitely doesn't look good.

And I think I have it bad!