tellhimfred.com

For those of you loyal forum readers out there, you’re already aware of the term “junk shove”. Ms. Connections coined it in a forum post - it’s another term for moving.

Well, this past Thursday I discovered that there is another, more applicable definition of “junk shove”, when I had outpatient heart surgery at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? I had, most of my life, a condition called SVT, or supra-ventricular tachycardia. It’s not serious, but irritating, and if left un-dealt with during an episode, can be very unhealthy. Recently, medical science has come up with a reasonably non-invasive process to cure SVT, and after a recent visit to my cardiologist, I was convinced that this ultra low-risk procedure was the way to go.

Now, naivete has never been my strong suit; I consider myself pretty hard-headed and realistic, but after having the initial consult with the doc, he had my head full of visions of a casual, drop-by, oh-while-you’re-at-it-can-you-fix-my-heart kind of a thing, like a “oh, did you just perform surgery on me? I thought I felt something!” sort of procedure.

Yeah, no.

Now, I don’t have any doubts about the skill level of the medical professionals involved with this institution, and after last week, I would recommend them to anyone. But the structure of Mt. Auburn hospital, especially the electrophysiology lab, is reminiscent of a disused rail station or perhaps a poorly kept grocery store. Bad tiles, shitty flourescent light, uncomfortable 1970s-era chairs and magazines, helpful arrows pointing out distant tie racks and exposed plumbing - let’s say my confidence wasn’t initially inspired.

So here we go. Take off all your clothes sir, and put on this ill-fitting paper-like robe. Backwards. Don’t worry about your ass being exposed, we don’t care. Next, lie on this gurney, and lie still while we shave only part of your chest to accomodate the sticky pads for the EKG. (Oh yeah, by the way those are going to hurt like fuck later when we peel them off.) Yeah, your chest looks like someone who fell asleep at a frat party. OK, leads hooked up, check. We’re not through shaving though. We have to denude your downtown of hair, which we will do by having a 60 year old nurse drape a washcloth over your cash and prizes, shove them out of the way, and go completely apeshit with a beard trimmer. bzzzzzshzzzzzbzzzzzzz “so, what kind of band are you in?” bzzzshzzzzzzvzzzzzGGGGggg (aaaaagh!) “whoops, sorry.”

Before you go, there’s a 24-year old female med student who would like to ask you a series of irrelevant and irritating questions about you. Please try to be polite and not to rip out her eyes and piss on her brain, which is of course, what will be going through your head the whole time she is speaking.

OK, time for the surgery! We wheel you, flat on your back into the little anteroom, which looks kind of like the scene from Jacob’s Ladder when the dude with no eyes sticks a horse needle into Tim Robbins’ forehead. Don’t be alarmed, but we’re going to tie your wrists in these restraints. Yeah. That’s normal.

OK, yes - we heard you when you told us that your body is highly tolerant of opiate-based anaesthesia (most medical professionals are aware of the cross-tolerance between opiates and booze, and yeah, you drink too much, dood) but we’re going to go ahead and give you the standard dose, and wait till you grit your teeth in completely lucid pain before giving you some more, then finally some benadryl to make you pliable.

Now:

1. Puncture 6 holes in the groin, three on each side of the junk, to access the femoral artery and vein.

2. Insert tubes into said holes.

3. Play “fun with catheters” in all 6 of these tubes.

4. Run a catheter through the femoral artery, up into the heart, to begin exploration. Oh, you can feel that? Yeah, isn’t that a messed up sensation? A tube running through your whole circulatory system? Yeah, it’s weird.

5. Poke the heart electrically several times, inducing tachycardia, see where the problem lies. That feels good, don’t it? I bet you’re beginning to wish we could put you out for this, no?

6. Electrically destroy the small extra piece of tissue on the heart that is causing the tach. ZZZZZZZZZAP! Wow, that looked painful!

7. Poke the heart electrically again, to make sure you can’t induce tach anymore. Yep, we fixed it!

Now for the fun part! We remove each tube rather painfully, and bandage you up. You now have to lie absolutely flat and more or less motionless, on a hospital gurney, for 4 hours, lest you pop those holes open and bleed out in less than 2 minutes. OK, ok, i see you’re losing your ever-loving mind. Here’s a valium.

OK, 4 hours is up, let’s get you the eff up and out of here! See ya!

Seriously. In at 8 a.m., junk-shoved at 9:30, and out at 5:00 p.m. What a crazy world.

P.S. - Huge props to Mrs. Hoffa for taking care of my cranky ass for the last few days. I would have had some pretty serious issues without her.  Big ups.