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I Had A Heart Attack -Part 2
It could happen to you.
I spent all of today as a patient at one of the cardiac hospitals in Vancouver. As anyone who has spent time in the diagnostic part of a hospital knows, it is “hurry up and wait.” Note: If you want to read Part 1 first, click here.
We have two cardiac hospitals in Vancouver. I was in the downtown one, a 25-minute drive from our local hospital. I was driven downtown in an ambulance by a very cheery couple; a man and woman who when I mentioned that my three and a half-year-old grandson loved ambulances, police cars, and fire trucks presented me with a promotional teddy bear to pass along to him.
Upon arrival at the hospital, I was escorted up to the cardiac unit and deposited in a bed. I was immediately attended to by a trio of nurses who fussed around me, asked a myriad of questions, poked and prodded me and got me ready for an angiogram. They needed to find out how many stents would be required to open up my heart’s partially blocked arteries. What is a stent? Very simply, it is a small tiny tube that a surgeon places in an artery to help keep it open to restore the full flow of blood to its destination.
There are two places an angiogram can start from. One is the wrist and the other is from the groin area. In either case, they have to be shaved. Mine was being carried out on my…
