PULL IT… Pull the Reserve Chute!!!!

Yesterday, in my fog – I forgot to include the most important part. After spending all that time at the hospital, they couldn’t even convert me back to normal sinus rhythm,I ended up going home exactly as I walked in, except with less blood and about 5 more needle holes…. my arms are getting dangerously junky sheik, angry red needle holes everywhere, accented with tiny circles of dis-coloured bruising. It would help account for why I’m getting all those double takes from the drug-pushers, they recognize me as a potential customer….

The only positive to be extracted from spending the friday before a long weekend in the ER… it’s extremely quiet. Generally, when you’re in there – at least a couple of people come in who, no matter how bad a shape you are in, you can still say, bloody hell, at least I’m not that guy…. cold hearted perhaps but nevertheless true and oddly comforting, it helps remind you that in most cases, things could always get worse… so yeah, my heart is busy riding bareback at the Calgary Stampede but at least my arm isn’t being carried in a Safeway bag, two minutes behind the rest of my body…

After trying all they could think of and having nothing work, they basically threw up their hands and said “OK, well, thanks for coming in – we’re here if you need us – sorry, there isn’t anything else we can do for you, (how about euthanasia?) you should probably make an appointment to see one of your cardiologists…” DUH, do you think… really?! Wow, so that’s why you guys spend the extra 12 years in school to be able to help me with that decision, to offer such sage guidance. I was thinking about heading off to Summit Everest after this, but if you really think it’s best to see my doctor than I guess maybe I should. Damn, what am I going to do with all the rope & sherpas already in my car? I guess the peak will have to wait…. Anything else ridiculously obvious you wanted to pass on before I leave? Maybe you wanted to remind me the sky is UP? How about, if I see the Sun, that means it’s Daytime. What about, never lay down in in Lava? Never cut childrens hair with a lawnmower?….

So we came home, as you can imagine my head was a bowl of 5 alarm chili. I was angry. I’ve spoken of this before, when you hold off going to the hospital as long as you can – in the hopes that you won’t have to go, the feeling of defeat is overwhelming when you realize that yep, we’re gonna have to go in. The Emergency Room is your fail-safe, it’s the last resort, when nothing else is working – the emergency room is your reserve chute. When, you pull that rip-cord and it fails to open….wowza, you are plunging to the earth, with no chute at all, coyote style – the best you can  hope for is that maybe you’ll hit a bush or something on impact. Cause you are really on your own….

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As I neared 80 continuous hours of this wandering heart o’mine, here I was back home and trying to fall asleep for the night. Ummmmm, not as easy as you might think, I was having trouble falling asleep for some reason…. I drifted off eventually and woke up this morning, to gentle arrhythmias…  sweet little butterfly kisses of Fibrillation, then it stopped and I converted back into Sinus Rhythm. That was 8:20 this morning and I’m writing this way earlier than I normally do, it’s 4PM and so far, so good (knock wood) I’m still in Sinus…..

Have a Great Day.