FREEDOOOOM
I over-emotionalize. I must admit, waiting to get out of the hospital after the procedure was done seemed like an interminable wait. Angiogram? Angiography? I’m still not 100% clear on the difference. My mind tells me that angiography is the science while an angiogram is the procedure. I don’t worry about it too much.
Monday morning, we went in and basically waited around all day. There was an unexpected operation being done on someone which was tying up the doctors. So they didn’t get to me Monday. I had been asked to not eat anything Monday though, so by the time supper came round, I doubly enjoyed going out with Pris to a Kiev restaurant to eat.
Tuesday morning, the doc popped in and I was told to hold myself in readiness. Three hours later… :)
The docs weren’t real forthcoming about what to expect and apart from knowing that a catheter would be inserted into an artery high on my leg, I didn’t feel the need to know all the ins and outs of it (if the truth be known, I didn’t want to have to dwell upon the thought of disrobing!) Sure enough, I was asked to take my jeans and shoes off. Phew! Nothing else off! You little ripper! My glee lasted until I was told to lie down on a table and... yeah. Time for a break in the story.
I must have been semi knocked out by whatever drugs they soon started dripping into my system, for all I seem to remember is being prepped, the noise of clanking and rattling as the x-ray did it’s work, then having some doctor pressing hard on my carotid?? artery post-procedure. I feel like I had a lucid conversation with him (Joshua the Muslim!) and then with the four or five others who came over to watch/listen about the philosophy of selfless love but I can’t be certain about the “lucid” part. :)
Here is my ward. I was very impressed with it. It probably sounds crazy to western ears, but seriously, I was extremely grateful.
The good news is that the test came back totally clear – no problems with my arteries or veins. The doctor’s recommendation is to get my heart to tip-top shape and hope that the cause of the strokes was something to do with the heart NOT being in tip-top shape compounded by thick blood, arrhythmia and possibly a peak in blood pressure. So I have some more crazily expensive tablets to swallow (I don’t know how a teacher on 2000grn a month can afford to pay that much for a months supply of tablets! I thought that it would be fun to just waltz through the wards looking for people who are struggling and give them a NT with $100 in it and then disappear. Man! What a fun way to show the love of Christ.
Anyway, After waiting most of the morning today, (Wed), the doctor gave me the slip of paper which effectively signs me out and I caught public home. Walking was a tad difficult, but not so much so that I had serious problems. Ha! I decided I probably had good reason to take a seat on the Metro train until a real cranky older bloke got in and started yelling at me to get up because he wanted to sit down. :) I did fine standing. “Mechanic” Valyera picked me up in Rzhyshchiv in his bomb Subaru and took me home which was much appreciated.
11:13 PM and time for bed. We have Maggie and Jamen staying a few nights with us which is nice. I like Kiwis… particularly when they are Christians.
I have to include a postscript. The cooks kept on offering me food. I wasn’t meant to eat any Monday. Then Tuesday it was the same story. Tuesday night, I just wasn’t interested. Wednesday morning though, they were very insistent at about 10:00 that I have some breakfast. I had just drunk a yoghurt and half a litre of juice, so wasn’t hungry at all, but I sure didn’t want to give them the impression that the Australian was too uppity to eat hospital food. (I learnt that you are meant to bring your own plate and spoon to hospital here. A bowl was no problem for them. But they had to look for a spoon. Hopefully they didn’t “borrow” it from some poor comatose patient.) I really wasn’t interested in beets and meat flavored porridge but was scared to flush it in case it got stuck in the toilet and then I’d be forced to fish it out again. But I sure didn’t want to offend the nice cooks! What you see in the photo is my brainwave. Juice box receptacle. Phew. It was all good until I went to say goodbye to the nice receptionist lady in her office. My bag fell over and I could imagine my beets and porridge flowing out over the floor to reveal my carefully laid plan to avoid offense! Thankfully, it all stayed in the box.