At the Hospital - Part 2 - Blood, Sweat and ... well, no Tears yet ....

No, I didn't forget Part 2 of my hospital stay - how could I?

I spent 5 days lying on a sheet-covered plastic mattress, for one thing. Do you realize how sweaty that can make you? I don't shower every single day (I know I should, but I don't. I'm not going to shower just so I can smell sweet for doing laundry, dusting, and watering the plants) but I do shower at least every second day, and every day when I work, and that's actually 3 days in a row. However, there I was, stuck in bed with an IV port stuck in my arm, and a heart monitor stuck all over my torso and legs, and I really needed a shower.

If I knew I had to go 24 hours with no heart pain before I could shower, I certainly wouldn't have had any worth mentioning, but that seems to be the rule. No amount of cajoling could change my nurse's mind - I even tried to bribe her with my iPad, but she still refused.

'Well, do you have some Febreeze I can use?' I was trying to be funny. Doesn't always work, though.

And she actually said, 'Yes, we do have a spray.'

Well, that scared me even more. I certainly didn't want to walk around in a waft of artificial rose. So I succumbed to her wishes and once more had a scrub down at the bathroom sink.

I had tons of visitors, but most of them were after something - blood, mostly. I watched in horror as two people wheeled in a gigantic machine that looked like a Kitchen Aid mixer on steroids, and I realized they were heading for my bed.

'Have you ever had a chest x-ray?' one of them asked. (Sigh of relief.)

'Yes,' I answered, 'but I've never had one delivered before.,

 Whew.

And shortly after that, this tiny little Chinese boy wheeled in yet another machine - and proceeded to hook me up so he could do an ultrasound of my beautiful heart. (No one knew it was beautiful yet, though.)

He apologized every time he had to shove my boobs out of the way - it would have been quite funny, actually, if it were someone else's boobs he had to manhandle.

However, the weekend passed, and on Monday morning, Dr Tam (the cardiologist) came in and told me he was sure they would find blockages when they did the angiogram that day - I told him I didn't think they would. He said, 'You'd be surprised, they'll find at least one, but don't worry, they can fix it right away.'

I wouldn't argue with him.

And I guess there's a Part 3 of this coming somewhere down the line .....