Orbs 'r' Us

PART TWO – WHEN IT HAPPENED:

Saturday morning -July 23, 2005

I needed to walk up to PoD’s place [away on holidays] to feed her animals. She lived up the hill from me and the climb was too much! I was having these pains in my leftt arm again and seeing as the doctor’s clinic was near her I went to his place instead. He wasn’t home…away until Monday. Feeling bad enough I figured I could walk to the hospital [3 long blocks away] and get it checked…just in case.

STUPID thing to do! By the time I got there I was in agony and I felt my arm needed to come off…the pain was so bad!

We had a new doctor in town at that time and that’s who I got to see!

My legs were swollen and he pegged everything down to stress, anxiety and being over weight! Oxygen made the pain go away and he figured that it eased my stress, etc. Giving me a “Water Retention Pill” prescription sent me on my merry way! Forgetting that I had told him that I had WALKED there!

On the walk back to my place [downhill] I had another attack!

I had to put up with the pain until my family doctor came home [Sunday night] and then I only had to tell him my symptoms over the phone for him to put me in the hospital for observation!

Diagnosis: Acute Angina!

This means living with “Angina Spray and Nitro Patches” [both give you massive headaches]!

Where the hell did that other doctor get his degree!

Oh wait…we’ll take anyone with a degree that will stay here!

Maybe I’m being over dramatic…but I could have died!!

Yes…I do know that you can’t die from Angina…but telling yourself that when you’re having an “incident” doesn’t help!

Now comes all of the testing!

Waiting for appointments!

They have to do stress tests, echo heart monitoring, etc!

Professional people didn’t seem to be too worried about my heart…so I tried not to also. Ha! What a joke! Just added more stress!

The stress test said I was definitely a candidate for “stents” to be put in!

What the hell are “Stents”?
They widen your veins with balloons and put in these stainless steel “Culverts” to keep them open!

I even put the “One-Act Festival in DeerJaw” [Nov. 4] ahead of my health [because I was acting in this one and felt that I owed my acting company not to let them down] that’s how much my ignorance was at that time!

Or maybe my denial of the situation!

I spent that weekend having a few more “incidences”!

At 12:30 am Nov. 23 I was awaken by a severe “incident” that landed me into the hospital here. It was bad enough to send me the next day into “Toon Town” and right into the Cardiac Care Unit!