Thursday
The transport guy came as I was in the midst of my walk,
at about the 1/4 mile point. I wanted to walk up to the
cath lab; this was generally frowned on by him and the
nurses. So I got wheeled up there in style.

Life has gotten better since '03. The procedure from start
to finish took less than 2 hrs with no gushing afterward
because of some kind of blood vessel clip. Only one stent
was introduced, apparently. There has been no immediate
benefit - I've been warned to wait a week to a month for
any noticeable change and for a couple months for the full
benefit to manifest. That's assuming that the dormant heart
muscle sees fit to wake up and not do anything embarrassing.

Afterward. Bounced around like a yo-yo. Ellison 11.
Back to White 8. Ellison 11. I ended up in a nice large
room with a shower on Ellison 10, my roommate a pleasant
Chinese guy even older than I who was soon released into the
kind care of the Spaulding.

A side effect: they overdid it on the fentanyl, so I got a
wave of naja as I was wheeled around town on my way to my
intermediate resting place. That's why one goes NPO before
a procedure.

Taking pity on me, the nutrition department sent up its
idea of what I should eat. About 1/4 lb of turkey breast,
2 Tb of gravy (salt-free), about 6 oz of steamed carrots,
half a pound of mashed taters, a cup of peaches in light
syrup, and REGULAR GINGER ALE. These are the guys who have
been denying me diet ginger ale. I got a diet from the
nurses' station. The turkey was kind of salty, so I ate it
with the carrots. The potatoes were puzzling, starchy and
margariney and a little salty and altogether not on my diet.

Five doctors trooped by, mostly to push the portable
defibrillator that would (as the cardiology fellow and then
his boss admitted to me) put paid to my playing a concert
again. Or rather: the new ones let you turn them off for an
hour; but if I were going to need one only for the exertion
that concerts cause, and I turned it off for concerts, what
would be the point. The boss guy also admitted that the
chance of one going off at all is about 4 percent a year.
Were they so easy to convince, or are they going to try to
put the whammy on me tomorrow?

A couple phone calls made the afternoon go by quickly, and
before I knew it, dinner was two 1/3 lb slabs of salmon,
tender and moist and somewhat appetizing despite being salt-
and herb-free. A fruit cup just like on the airplane.

The resident who came from cath for followup had to clean up
the blood from my site, which he did with good humor, treating
me rather like a wayward old uncle. One perhaps positive
effect of the large number of young east Asians in the medical
profession is that I get treated like a wayward old uncle a lot.

Here on the cardiac unit, IVs are counted against your fluid
restriction! in contrast to elsewhere. Pity the poor soul
who has a half liter of electrolyte solution pumped in after
lunch and is reduced to ice chips if that for thirst for the
rest of the day. I hadn't had breakfast so came in under the
limit when I asked for something to drink with my meds.