October 22, 2008

Coup de Coeur

Today started at my mother's house, in Owego, NY. I did a little work today, but not all that much, really.

At 5:37 PM today, I was on my computer, playing WoW. I was in a Karazhan raid, for those in-the-know. My cell phone started ringing, upstairs on the dresser where I'd left it; Mom yelled for me, so I trotted upstairs and answered. It was a call from my eldest sister's cell phone.

On the line was her husband. "Get packing and hit the road," he said. "Your father's been taken to Corning Hospital, they think he may have had a heart attack. Don't drive to fast."

The military life taught me many things. One of them was the art of rapid departure. I was packed in five minutes, and on the road in five more. Owege is about a 65 minute drive to Corning if you follow the speed limit. But I have a fast car, which I rarely stretch to it's abilities; I figured to make it in 50 or less. It was a nice cloudy day, the road had dried off, traffic was light. In Georgia I'd once managed to peg my speedometer at 120; I didn't get going that fast this time, but I did put the spurs to it.

Thankfully for the speed limit, after a few minutes on the road I got another call, that Dad was being transferred to Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, PA. That was a stroke of luck for me, as Sayre is along the highway I was taking to go to Corning. The call came just in time, as the very next exit was for Sayre.

That's where I am now. I've been waiting a half hour, but the ambulance bringing him from Corning hasn't arrived yet. I'll update this post with new imformation when I learn anything.

Update 1: 7:10 PM. My stupid Sprint phone's not getting any service in here. I knew I should have picked up a T-Mobile phone while I was in Buffalo. I bet they get service here.

Update 2: 9:02 PM. The people at the front desk forgot to tell me when Dad arrived, so I didn't find out until I got bored and harassed them again. Then I went upstairs to find him in his room, getting an EKG. But enough about me, you want (a) the prognosis, and (b) the history.

(A): He had a heart attack, last night or early this morning. His heart is functioning normally right now, so he's going to spend the night here. Tomorrow at around nine or ten AM, he'll have a coronary angiography, where they insert a catheter into a femoral artery, thread it up to his aorta, and release some ink. They'll watch the ink on X-Ray to see where the blocked arteries are. If there's only one or two blockages, they'll probably insert a stent right there. If there's more blockages, they'll schedule bypass surgury later.

(B): Last night, Dad went to bed an hour early, at 11 PM. After six hours, his bladder informed him that he'd had enough sleep and it was time to release some hydraulic pressure. After he took care of business, he realized he was feeling "Quite poorly", and as it was getting worse, he called an ambulance.

In Corning Hospital, they took blood, and hooked him up into some diagnostic machines. The machines said he was fine, so they reassured him that it was a good idea to come in with any symptoms, and they scheduled him for a cardiac stress test that afternoon.

After some waiting around doing some reading and some work, the medical staff came bustling back into his room. His blood work had come back, and showed that he had indeed had a heart attack. (One particular enzyme that's supposed to be at "2" was at "6" on a logarithmic scale.) Still, the EKG showed that his heart was working normally at the moment, so they arranged to transfer him to Robert Packard, which had a better coronary unit. That was when he called my Sis and gave her a list of things he wanted from home; he'd run out of reading material, and needed references to do any more work.

Then I arrived at the hospital, getting to his room after he'd been here twenty minutes or so. Fifteen minutes later, my sister and brother-in-law arrived too; they'd left their daughter with her grandparents in Horseheads. (Apparently Grandpa gave her crackers and Grandma let her onto the waterbed, without consulting each other, so now there are crumbs all over the bed.)

So, that's the story. I'm going back to my mother's place tonight some time to sleep, and I'll come back in the morning to check the schedule. He's in a hospital bed with oxygen in his nose, a nitroglycerin patch on his back, a portable monitor on his chest, and a IV shunt in his arm. (No IV at the moment.)

Update 3: 9:43 PM. I didn't stop for dinner on my way over. Fortunatly, I had some cookies in the car; I was planning on taking them to the weekend game up at my friend Paul's place. I've been munching far more cookies than I should be. Dad didn't want any, although he doesn't have to start fasting for the surgery until midnight tonight. But then, a heart attack probably makes one a wee bit concious of the quality of their diet.

Also, his angigraphy is complicated by his allergy to shellfish. The dye they use is iodine, which is a component in many shellfish allergies. So before he gets the catheter, he's going to get shots with some very powerful antihystamines to knock out his allergic response ahead of time.

Posted by: Boviate at 06:07 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 Thanks for the update, my mom alerted me to be reading your blog. I shall be sending good energy his way.

Posted by: margaret at Friday, October 24 2008 03:07 PM (M0Mid)

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