The Plot Thickens

For those of you who know me well, you’ve probably been made long aware of the fact that the plot always thickens.

At this point, I’m swimming in molasses.

As most people who know me and all people who read my blog routinely know, my grandmother went in to the ER two weeks ago with chest pains. As it turned out, she was having a major heart attack and what we’ve elected to call “the beginning” of a stroke. Things have turned out OK so far. Two bypasses, three arteries removed and cleared of all blockages and a NASA o-ring plugging up the hole in her mitral valve and she’s good as new.

Well, okay, not quite. During the surgery on her carotid artery, they either bumped or sliced a bundle of nerves - the bundle of nerves that controls the muscles in your throat that handle swallowing. Not such a big deal when you’re on IV nutrition – unless, of course, you’re draining saliva into your lungs Then things get just a little bit messier than we might have hoped. Still, if a few weeks of swallowing exercises are the worst outcome of an otherwise successful surgery, I say go for it. Hey, at least she doesn’t have to eat the hospital food.

Alas, if that were the only plot twist in this weeks episode. I’ve had the great pleasure of being met this week not only with a 63 year old woman who can’t swallow and thus has to cough saliva out of her lungs in what seems to have been one of the more horrific experiences of her life, but I’m also met with yet another patient of sorts – or at least someone who is turning themselves into one.

My mother was rushed to the ER yesterday morning with chest pains, shortness of breath and an implacable heaviness in her arms. For those of you that haven’t spent the last two weeks of your life in a cardiac wing, those are text book symptoms of a myocardial infarction. Naturally, the doctors couldn’t find the disrythmia on an EKG, but they slapped on a nitro paste patch, prescribed 325 mg of aspirin and sent her home to schedule a stress test.

Since then, she’s been wound like a mouse trap and self-inducing chest pains on and off. I can’t say I blame her entirely, nothing says chest pains like trying to find a preferred provider over the phone with your insurance company but it was nevertheless infuriating to watch her make her situation worse.

As it stands now, she’s carrying around a bottle of baby aspirin and I’m taking her hospital shift (11 to ??) until so she can hang out with my father some and try to relax. All in all, I think I’d really just like to give her a valium, an anti-depressant and put her in a Yoga class.

I don’t suppose this is at all uncharacteristic for my life pattern. After all, one thing is complicated enough, but nothing says “martini” like adding in another roll of the dice.