We pick up the story in the late afternoon around 3:40 on Friday January 11th. Pretty soon, Dr. Charron came by again. He wanted to give me an invoice (I had no place to put it!) and talk about today’s procedure. We were all more relaxed. There were smiling faces and calm voices. This was quite a contrast from Wednesday. Dr. Charron said that everything should go very well, but that some folks have another heart attack during an angioplasty procedure: “About 5%,” he said. I already knew I was in a special minority. I didn’t need to be in that 5%.
As the nurses rolled me into the O.R., there was cold air and two people lifted me on to the table. One nurse taped the oxygen monitor to my left index finger, then flipped up the arm holders on each side of the table. I had hoped that they could use my right arm again as the entry point for the tube and stent, but it was not to be.
Dr. Charron said that he was going to go through my groin and femoral artery for the heart catheterization and angioplasty and placement of the stent. A nurse asked me for the English word for “groin.” The doctor said that the blood pressure in my right arm was not strong enough to go through my radial artery again.
So, this time when the nurse said that the application of the iodine paste was going to be cold, I knew what to expect. She was more comprehensive than before and covered me from my waist down to my thighs with an iodine bath of the slush-like liquid. This was followed by fabric and then paper covering me from neck to feet. Next, one of the doctors injected the lateral groin area with local anesthesia. He injected a couple of times in the area where the slit and insertion point would be. While a high pain threshold can be a problem, it is a blessing for situations like this when I’m receiving multiple sticks and pricks.
In short order Dr. Charron made a small incision and then was inserting the Seldinger needle at a 30-45° angle into the femoral artery. A guide wire is then inserted through the needle into the artery and the preparation for the journey to the heart begins. The needle is removed and the catheter sheath and dilator are pushed over the guide wire. Then the dilator is removed and the sheath is ready to receive the catheter. I could feel the process begin as Dr. Charron pushed a tube through my lower abdomen in search of the right coronary artery that was 70% blocked. The plan was to open up the artery with a balloon and then place a 4 x 16 mm stainless steel or cobalt-chromium alloy mesh stent to keep it open with 0% blockage.
After some time of injected dye and moving the x-ray machine around so that the doctors could see where everything needed to come together, I began to feel the pressure and burning that had been my dreaded companion on Wednesday. “Surely not,” I thought. “Am I going to be one of the 5%?”
I said that I was feeling pressure like I had on Wednesday. Dr. Charron broke from a steady banter in French and spoke to me in English, “It’s perfectly normal. We’re close to being finished.”
My anxiety decreased, but my pain stayed steady. What an awful feeling. Soon the pain began to quiet. The tube was being removed and a huge rolled up fabric bandage, like a towel was pressed tight across the right side of my groin area from my waist to between my legs. It was secured with tape. Then another doctor came over to massage the area of my femoral artery. A vascular closure seal had been positioned on the outer surface of the artery and would be resorbed within 60-90 days. The massaging helped the artery settle back into it’s naturally protected position. I was not allowed to sit up for several hours because of the fragility and danger of leakage with this artery.
Dr. Charron drew my attention to the large video screens to my left and showed me before and after pictures of my artery. His work was called percutaneous coronary intervention [PCI]. What I saw was a picture of brokenness being restored to shalom – all was as it should be now. No doubt it is similar work that the Holy Spirit performs in opening the hardened places in our spiritual hearts so that life-giving blood can flow.
I had no oxygen mask this time. I was transferred to a rolling bed and moved back to the “on deck” room – pre-op was now post-op as patients were intermingled in this large banquet hall. My whole time in the Operating Room equaled 60 minutes. Wow. A life-saving deed was done to/for me in only an hour. Years of training, discipline and experience allowed these medical people to efficiently and effectively “fix me” in the time many of us spend watching an episode of our favorite TV program.
I was feeling better, but was tired and hungry. When I returned to my room in CCU, I was told I might could eat dinner at 10:00 or 10:30 PM. It was 5:00 and most of the other patients were receiving dinner right then. I needed to rest, take a couple of pills and empty my bladder.
Curt had returned and was in the room shortly after I had gotten settled. I had to lay relatively flat due to the femoral artery, but I wanted to sit up and talk. Curt was getting a bit hyper about next steps and when he should make plans to return to Atlanta and when Jenny could fly to Montreal and then return home with me. We had more questions than answers. It was frustrating, but we learned that we approach situations differently and thus should not project our expectations on to others.
I was beginning to fall asleep, so, Curt headed back to the villa. And I rested.
