This latest
episode has confirmed my suspicion that I am on the way out. It could still
take some years to get there, but I have the impression that the journey is now
well under way.
It started
in 2016 with prostate cancer; then there was the squamous cell carcinoma on my
cheek followed by that stupid hernia. The thing on my cheek somehow evaded the
old boy’s scalpel and got to work on the nearest lymph node and had to be
attacked with chemo and radiation a year ago. A couple of months later more sc
carcinoma, this time on my ear, and it was back to the octogenarian plastic
surgeon to have a chunk cut out, Van Gogh style. Better luck this time? And now
the heart.
A heart
murmur was picked up when I was a youngster, and the Army did not want me
because of it, for which I was thankful. This murmur kept to itself until about
two years ago, when it suddenly raised its voice to a shout. It was like having
a panic attack. My heart pounded at a furious rate and I felt light-headed and
in danger of fainting. I had to sit down and wait for the episode to pass,
which it gradually did over the next half hour.
Since that
first incident I have had three or four bouts of varying duration, none of them
lasting more than an hour before the hectic pumping slows and my pulse returns
to normal. This latest episode, however, was far more serious. I was working in
the garden when I felt it coming on. My heart beating rapidly, I went inside
and sat down, waiting for the thumping to slow and subside. By the evening I
realised I was up against a different beast that showed no sign of buggering
off and leaving me alone.
The
following morning – it was Wednesday, 6 December – I got out of bed and the
pounding resumed, as did the dizziness whenever I stood up. Christ, I said to
my wife, we had better do something about this. Alarmed, she sprang into action
and phoned the physician I had consulted previously. At the time, he had been
unable to make a definitive diagnosis, saying it was like taking a car to a
mechanic. While it is running smoothly, it is hard to say why it sometimes cuts
out. He now advised me to make haste to my GP in Gansbaai and get her to give
me an ECG and send it to him, pronto. We drove to Gansbaai, where the GP had
agreed to wait, even though she had seen her last patient. After battling to
get electrodes to stick to my hairy chest, she managed to do the ECG and send
it to the physician. Back in Pearly Beach, the phone rang and the physician
informed me he had made an appointment for me to see a cardiologist in Hermanus
at 2pm the next day.
The
cardiologist turned out to be a thin woman of about 60. She had a direct manner
and I found her line of questioning interesting, as it seemed to reveal
something about her as a person who was more than just a medical professional. She
took me to her ‘workshop,’ a room with a bed and monitors and various pieces of
electronic equipment. I lay down and was once more wired up for an ECG. Then
she used a small hand-held device placed over the area of my heart to see what
an ultrasound would reveal.
“I’ll turn
up the Doppler so you can hear how fast your heart is beating,” she said, and I
listened to the rapid beeping that sounded to me like a terribly urgent alarm
going off. Around 200 beats a minute. No wonder I felt like I did. “What you
have,” she said with conviction, “ is an Atrial Flutter.”
The next
step was to take me to a nearby emergency room where a doctor and three
paramedics immediately went about setting up an IV line in each arm. I got the
impression they were treating this as a life-threatening situation and there
was no time to stand around chatting. First, they attempted to slow my
troublesome organ by administering a drug intravenously. This had next to no
effect and, after trying once more in vain, they all agreed, including the
cardiologist, who was directing operations, that it was time to bring out the
big gun. A large electrode was stuck to my chest and another on my back. They
were going to shock my heart out of its crazy rhythm and bring it back to
normalcy. But first they had to put me under, and again I had the pleasure of
drifting into unconsciousness. Told to count aloud, I got to 28 or 29 before my
voice faded and I returned to the womb.
Minutes
later, I was back in the emergency room, fully conscious and aware that my
heart had slowed from a gallop to an amble. The cardiologist was clearly
pleased that the cardioversion had been successful and she did not have a
corpse on her hands. She said I would have to remain in ICU overnight to be on
the safe side, but unfortunately the Mediclinic facilities were choc a bloc
with all the bloody senigrants who had been pouring into the area. I would have
to be taken to Vergelegen in Somerset West. This meant being loaded head first
into a crappy little ambulance and taken on an hour-long journey over the
mountain, and then offloaded the other side and trundled along endless
corridors to the high care ward.
The next 12
hours felt like a form of torture. I was rigged up to an ECG and a blood pressure aand pulse monitor on one
side, and an IV drip on the other, which restricted movement in the bed that
soon began to feel like a rack. I was walled in by curtains, beyond which I was
aware of other patients. Throughout the night there was a great deal of coming
and Going all around and within my chamber, and the noise of beeping monitors,
loud voices and clattering equipment was constant. For supper I was served tea
and a white bread, cheese and tomato sandwich which, if I was the complaining
type, I would describe as unappetizing. I could not get comfortable and doze
off, so I remained fully aware of the ordeal I was going through. At one stage
I asked the nurse, who was most attentive and gave me the impression that she
expected me to have a heart attack before she went off duty, whether I could go
to the toilet. Definitely not, If I wanted to empty my bladder she could help
me to use a bottle. She unplugged some of the equipment and helped me stand at
the side of the bed. Once she was sure my old dick had been thrust into the
cardboard urinal, she left me to relieve myself in private. At 4.30 she wheeled
in a trolley bearing a bowl of warm water, soap and a towel, and said it was
time to bath. Bath? I washed my hands and wiped my face, neck and armpits, and
lay back, listening to the commotion going on around me and waiting for
breakfast.
The day
staff came on at 7, and breakfast arrived at 8. A container of yoghurt,
scrambled eggs and toast. And, strangely, a small bowl of mincemeat. It made me
think of gruel, the likes of which might have been served to the patients in
Bedlam. It tasted alright.
At around
8.30 my cardiologist’s colleague arrived. In his late fifties, he was affable
and unhurried. He looked at the file and asked me how I was feeling. Desperate
to get out of the place, there was no way I was going to say anything but fine.
Good. He called for a discharge form and wrote me a script for a blood thinner,
which he said his lady would motivate for chronic with the Medical Aid. He
confirmed that my problem was Atrial Flutter and assured me it was not an
uncommon condition with the elderly, and could be treated successfully by means
of ablation. This technique uses heat or cold energy to create tiny scars in
the heart to block irregular electrical signals and restore a typical
heartbeat. It is performed by passing a thin catheter through a vein or artery
from the groin to the heart. It does not involve major surgery and the patient
goes home the next day.
He left me
with these comforting words and I immediately phoned my wife to come and fetch
me in Somerset West. Our hospital plan only paid for one-way ambulance
transport and Discovery weren’t interested in how I got home, just as long as
they were not asked to foot the bill.
She made
good time and arrived soon after eleven. The road all the way to Hermanus
seemed excessively busy and we agreed that, like my heart, the pace of life
was becoming too fast for us. When I got out of the car in Pearly Beach and
heard the birds in the garden and smelt the sea on a gentle breeze coming from
the south I nearly wept with joy and relief. I was lucky to have survived a
hellish interlude in an increasingly hostile and alienating environment.
In a month
from now I must again go over the mountain, this time all the way into Cape
Town, to undergo the procedure that will allow me to live to a hundred, if I
don’t die tomorrow or the next day, depending on who or what is waiting in the
shadows to jump out and kill me.
