Search This Blog

Friday, March 20, 2026

adventures in aging

Every time a big snow blows hard here so that I can barely see the building across the street I think of you Beagles way up north, way up out of town.  I picture your house slung low to the ground and snow piling on the roof and up to the doorway so that if anybody was so stupid as to stand by the road and look all they could see was a muted glow from the kitchen.  I assume the kitchen, sounds like the place to go in a storm, close to the food, maybe you can turn on the burners for a little more warmth, and worrying about how much heating oil or just plain food you have and if it will get to you before, well before.

I've been to the houses of people who live deep in the country and throw open their doors and brag about how there is not a soul around for ten miles, and I think I could not live like that.  The most alone I've been is living in a trailer in the back yard of a house in a city of 10,000.  Now I have about 800 people living in the two towers with me and when I look out the window most of what I see is other windows most of them with people on the other side of them.  

Yes Beagles move to downtown Cheboygan, down on Main Street just south of Lincoln where that medical center is and looks like a Walmart and some fast foods, you could walk there in a blizzard, or at least get a grubhub or a cab.


Speaking of medical centers.  When we had that last cold spell I noticed when climbing the stars that my chest hurt and so did my left arm.  Well it's cold in the stairwell so it must be the cold.  But then the hurting continued when it got warmer.

So I went to urgent care where the guy gave me an EKG and said go right to the Northwestern Memoria Hospital Emergency Room right now.   Well I said, Ill drop by there tomorrow early when it's not so crowded.  "Right Now!" he repeated pointing a finger in that direction.

So I did, it was crowded, but the line moved pretty good.  Right off they wanted to give me an EKG and I pulled out the copy that I got at the urgent care, and he waved  away.  We don't need no EKG from some podunk urgent care we are Northwestern Memorial Hospital by gum.

Well ok then.  The emergency room once you get out of the waiting room is like a block long.  Doctors, patients, jabber, jabber.  I saw three or four docs, or folks who looked like docs, and they talked that doctor talk so I didn't know what they were saying.  Then they put on a gurney and pushed me into a hallway and then it seemed like they forgot about me, but after a couple hours they pushed me into a room.  Small room, no window, tethered me to some buzzing thing, and all I had was the clothes I was wearing and a magazine I'd mostly read, and a bossy nurse.  

It was a long night and a long morning, docs came in and out and I learned that I was going to get an angiogram.  I knew what that was because I had been speaking to Chatz before I went to the urgent care.  They stick a tube down your wrist or ankle and it goes up through your wrist or your ankle and if they see something they don't like they put in a stent or two.  Well I know people who have had stents, not so bad, let's get to it.

They put me on a gurney and wheeled me down to surgery and prepped me and I was good to go.  But first I had to just lay there on the gurney for three hours while people buzzed around me.  Finally I learned that the surgery before me was going well into overtime.  Not a good sign.

Finally they wheeled me into surgery, doped me just a tad and did the angiogram.  They wheeled me out and I was so happy because Chatz had told me once they do the deed you are good to go and I was ready to go.

But it turns out that they didn't put any stents in.  They wanted to talk about it.  I was back in the room with the bossy nurse tethered to that thing, nothing to read, half in and out of one of those gowns.

It turned out that they wanted to that they wanted me to stay another night.

I wanted to go home.  See my cat, wear some clothes, get loosed from that thing I was tethered to.  I was pretty sure I had the right to sign myself out so I asked to.  Well they talked and they talked, this person, that person.  If I stayed they could do it the next morning and everything would be taken care of.  I didn't believe them for a second, once they get you in their clutches they never want to let you go.

I went home and saw my cat.  Wednesday I had a talk with the surgeon, 3 options, open heart, robotic surgery, or the stent.  I was scared to death of open heart, probably unreasonably but scared to death anyway.  That robotic surgery a little weird, I am going for the stent.  I will get in Monday morning and I should be good to go.

No comments:

Post a Comment