Naked Came the Patient

Posted on September 19, 2004 in Coronary

Hospitals — even Catholic ones — like to get you naked and keep you that way. The first thing they did at Mission Hospital, after taking my vital signs, was to hand me one of those gowns which look like a badly made Depression-era housedress and put it on backwards. I was allowed the privacy of the bathroom to make the change. “Are you sure this is long enough?” I asked the nurse whose name was Aida. “One size fits all.”

It dropped to an invisible line about three inches above my knees, long enough to cover my groin. I went back to the bed and confessed every health-endangering act of my life to the nurse. When we finished the seven page questionaire, she had me sign more papers which Lynn stuffed into the blue folder they’d given me when I’d undergone pre-admitting on Wednesday. At eleven thirty, the nurse returned with an aspirin, a benadryl tab, and a orange valium. “Take these, all of them,” she said, dropping them into a paper cup and giving me only a mouthful of water to swallow them. Since midnight, I had been fasting from food and drink. I was forbidden my diabetic medication because it interacted with the dye; it proved fine to take half a xanax in the morning, however. What they wanted most from me was a pliable demeanor for the theater to follow.

Nurse Kathy arrived with the gurney at about noon. She pushed me through the corridors of the low and level “Pavillion” wing of Mission Hospital. As we rolled along, we talked about what was to be done to me. “I hear the worst part is what happens around the hip,” I said. “A friend of mine told me about the 24 hour pressure ball.”

“He must have had it done some time ago.”

“Ten years,” I said.

“We’re much more consumer-friendly now,” she laughed. We made a turn somewhere down the hall. Left. “The drug we gave you has an amnesiac effect,” she said. “You probably won’t remember much of what happens.” The body cart rolled fast. I looked in the round mirrors at intersections. Lynn was running to catch up. Kathy stopped before a pair of double doors and waved huskily, again to the left. “You have to wait in the Pavillion Lounge. Doctor will come out to talk to you when he has finished the procedure.”

My journey continued through the doors into the cardiology section where everyone was dressed in true blue overalls. They brought me into the operating room, another left turn. The male nurses greeted me loudly. “Do you want to be called Joe or Joel?” asked a short fellow whose name I think was Manny. “Joel,” I insisted. They moved the gurney over to the long flat table. As I scooted over, Kathy undid the gown strings. They covered me with a blanket, removed the gown with the dexterity of a skilled seducer, and shifted me so that my head rested under the x-ray machine, the tube of which was roughly the size and shape of a large can of housepaint.

The blanket came up for just a second as one of the men laid a folded cloth over my personals. “There, you’re decent.” The blanket came up again as Kathy shaved the area and Manny swabbed Betadine “instant tan in a bottle” in the crease between my gut and my leg. They told me to keep my hands at my sides. My groin was now sterile. I was too relaxed to offer much protest, though I made mental notes.

My doctor arrived. By this time, everyone had covered their faces and heads. He pulled up the blanket over my half-denuded groin. “Here’s the needle,” he said. I felt a squeak of pain where it pricked me. “Here’s a second one.” I only felt the shape of the point and the shaft for that one. The cut occurred unnoticed by me. I blinked and heard an orderly speak about the flush that comes when they inject the dye into the heart. “It feels like you’re going to the bathroom,” said Manny. Yes, it was as if I had wet myself and the juice was spreading all over my hips and thighs. That sensation passed and I quickly realized that I was dry. I saw the vessels of my heart on a television screen. My cardiologist announced that it was over and that he had sewn me up. They had me hip and shoulder it over to the cart, admonishing me to keep my right leg straight as I did.

In several clicks of a reel with missing frames and more than a few torn sprockets, they wheeled me back to the recovery room and had me scoot to the bed from the gurney as I had to gurney from the table a few minutes before. Lynn reentered the room as Kathy handed me the shots of my procedure. I had enough mind to know that the results were good, that no angioplasty had occurred. For most of the rest of the afternoon, I slept or took advantage of my sedation to write poetry. I had to keep my right leg absolutely straight and still for six hours. When they allowed me to rise and dress, they gave me my gown back for the brief walk to the bathroom. I was conscious enough to feel shy and nervous about the pain that popped electrically in my hip when I moved it.

For the spouse-eye view, click here.