I’ve been reading a lot of blogs on myspace; about how people got where they are and maybe why they feel the way they do, and I figured it was about time I did too. This could turn into one of my longer ones, so I’m just warning ya.
November 15th, 1995 was like every other November 15th, it was the opening day of deer season. Business’ had closed outright, and there were many high schools that taught but Freshman and Sophmore students that day. Some business’ stayed open but to a lesser extent. I worked for a company that chose a lesser extent as the boss didn’t hunt. I did though, and I got up that morning at 4am.
It had been almost 30 years since I’d gotten up for an opening day and I was as excited that morning, as I did the first time. I had been talking to Doug, daily, from the day I had met him that June, until the night before. The closer we got to opening day, the more we talked about it, and the more excited I became. Deer season primarialy, is an expectant season, one where more time is spent daydreaming about it, than is actually used, doing it.
I walked in Doug’s house about 5:30am and over coffee, talked about some other tactics we might try later in the day, and the radios. The radio’s are nice to have when they’re needed, but there are times when it’s better to leave them off. It’s not like the Soviets are in the area, but the deer are, and they can hear a flea fart fifty feet away. (I typed that right the first time btw). We decided to make 9am our time to break radio silence and after takin’ a piss, we headed out.
There wasn’t a moon, but the trees cast shaddows from the starlight. It sounds romatic but it was also -15 degrees below zero, so even breathing hurt. I had thought about carrying my snowpants up the hill with me, but after walking from the van to the house, I decided otherwise. It was going to be a quarter mile, uphill walk from the house to the seat Doug had placed behind a screen of burlap. The first 75′ traveled, was mostly verticle and the use of hardwood saplings was greatly appreciated, and when I reached the top of that, I stopped and cooled off a bit. The rest of the walk was still uphill, but at a much reduced grade and I could see into the forest. Most of the trees are 10 year old maples, mixed with ash and black cherry, with no undercover to hide in. That’s why Doug had used burlap, and it formed a 3′ wall, around me. I was sitting behind all this when the trouble started and I was glad the wall was there.
About 15 minutes after I sat down, I started to get sick to my stomach, and soon thereafter, the sweats. I had been getting anxiety attacks all my life and this was another prime example of why I hated them. I’d get myself all worked up about hunting, fishing, sometimes poor grades because I did the other two, too much. Whatever, I had one and I was going to sit there until the fucker went away. Within another 10 minutes the sweat was pouring off me, and I started to strip. It was still -15 so I didn’t get down to the union suit, but all the zippers were unzipped and the buttons undone. Seeing that there weren’t any animals within sight, I’d placed my ‘06 up against the maple and leaned forward resting my elbows on my knees. The nausea became swells of disorientation and the water began to pour off my nose and chin. When my vision became blurry I started to heave, but I couldn’t. When bending over that last time, I glanced to my right and there were over a dozen does meandering through the trees. Doug was far to my right, covering this same runway I was watching, and they were headed that way. I would have been real pissed had I a doe permit, but it was males only for me that year. I slowly and quietly eased myself to my hands and knees, and with my body hid behind the burlap, I began to puke my fucking brains out. After getting rid of last nights spaghetti dinner and another gallon or two of water, I eased myself back onto the chair and looked around. It was daylight by then and with the deer gone, I thought about getting back to the house. Trembling as I walked, I looked back down the trail I used coming up, and knew somehow, that I’d never make it. I did have one other choice though; I could step over the edge of that hill and work my way down over some fallen trees. The grade there was even steeper than the one coming up, but the deep snow helped in preventing me from sliding all the way down. I looked at my watch as I walked in his basement and it was 7:45. I still had an hour and fifteen minutes to wait until I could leave. The Navy had taught me well, I never leave a post until relieved and I wasn’t going to get relieved until 0900. I probably couldn’t have driven then even if I wanted to, I had a splitting headache and the dry heaves. The sweats got worse and I ended up stripping off everything I had on, and then wrap blankets around me when I’d get cold. Right at 0900 I called Doug and told him I felt like crap and was going home.
When I got home about 20 minutes later, there was a nurse here attending to my dad. She would come once or twice a week and give him the once over then do whatever he needed done that day. I was freezing by the time I walked in the house and headed right for the shower. The chest pain had started about half way back from Doug’s and it was getting to be real painfull, and for some reason, I figured a nice hot shower would fix it. That didn’t work, so I headed to bed and started to howl in pain. The nurse came in soon thereafter and had a look at me. She said: “Ya know, if you asked me, I could call an ambulance and they could take you to the hospital and you’d feel much better. Really, if you SHOULD ASK ME, I’d be more than happy to call an AMBULANCE and maybe fix it. But you have to ASK ME!!! to take you…” “OK” I said, “how about calling an ambul…” and she was gone. She came back into my bedroom and asked if I could walk downstairs and I was all for it. Even jumping off the top, it would still be safer than riding down that staircase on a gurney. Near as I can figure, it was about 10:30 when we pulled into Charlevoix Hospital.
My memory is pretty spotty along here, but I do remember waking up in the “Dieing room” a couple times. I suppose every hospital has one; a secluded glassed in space with drapes on all the windows, and a chair or two along one wall. I remember seeing my wife and son Matt standing along side her, and she was a wreck. Then there was a conversation and Jan looked a lot better and soon after that, I was on another ambulance. From there I rode to Petoskey and Northern Michigan Hospital. It was mid-afternoon when I remember seeing Dr. Shuel standing over me in an operating room. He said “I’m going to do something here and then your going to get a nice drink of cold water”, I said “have at it” and he started. Within a minute I could feel the sensation of a nice cold drink of water through my heart. The next sensation was that of a gay guy kneeling on my theigh.
During my treatment in Charlevoix, they had pumped enough Reopro into me, to loosen up a clot on an elephant, and I ain’t quite that big. When they tapped into the artery leading up my leg it was like a Maple in March. I don’t know how messy it got, but there was one good sized gay dude on my theigh. He sat there and I laid there for another 5 hours before he could get off it.
It seems that the doctor in Charlevoix, (Dr. Joy I believe it was) had decided that I was a lost cause after pumping me full of an anti-clotting agent, and put my in the dieing room. When the shift changed, another doctor had a look at me and called Petoskey. The next day in Petoskey, a suit came in and asked me to sign a form saying that he had recommened that I never take Reopro again. He told me and I signed it. I’m stickin’ up to my end of the deal too.
That would be a nice ending to all this were it so, but it ain’t. I haven’t got to the part where I die yet.
Not long after I started the re-hab process at Charlevoix Hospital, I began to develop an irregular heartbeat. It didn’t happen often, but whenever it did, I could feel the muscle contracting. It seldom happend at first, but whenever I’d start the exercises it would really kick in. It got so I could look over to see the nurse glancing up at my screen as they’d begin. After a week of this, she had me make an appointment to see Dr. Levanovitch in Petoskey right away.
The first apointment I was given a device that would record any irregular heatbeats over a 24 hour period, and after those results came back, I went in for a stress test. There are two different stress tests I’ve taken over my history and the one I took that day was the worst. In one of them you’re injected with a nuclear tracer and then put on a tread mill, when you tell them you can’t take it anymore, they hook up the meters and have a read. The second one is used with a sonogram. I laid down on the table, on my left side, and after lubing me up, ran the probe over my heart. They had me hold my breath at times as they took readings I guess, and then move it and repeat. Then I got up on the treadmill and had a go of it. Treadmills to me are always a challenge, as I always wanted to know what it’ll take to kill me. I almost found out. I went on as long as I could and then they rushed me over to the table and laid back down on it. My fuckin’ heart was going crazy and they wanted me to hold my breath. This went on over and again, but I got through it and eventually, the arrthymia’s began to subside. Everything went marginally ok until I was headed back to the waiting room to see Jan. We were going to wait there for the results and then have a confab with the doctor. I got about 6′ down that hallway and I was leaning against the wall as I slid to the floor. A half dozen nurses came out of everywhere and I was in a wheel chair waiting for my wife. They had moved me into an open office and it wasn’t long before Jan walked in. She was a little worked up, as you can imagine, seeing me in a wheel chair and the commotion I caused with the staff. Not long after that, Dr. Levonovitch walked in with Dr. Shuel. Dr. Shuel was my cardioligist and looked remarkably like Ben of Ben and Stiller. Dr. Levonovitch looked like a Soviet Hebrew. Dr. Levonovitch is the electrician of that group of doctors and I think any hospital would be happy to have him.
We discussed the recent heart attack I had, and the extensive damaged that it caused. Most of the bottom half of my heart was turning into dead meat, and electricty doesn’t conduct too well through it. The heart rythim starts on the upper left corner in a node and is transmitted to the lower left chamber, across to the lower right chamber and then up to the upper right. Works like a champ if all the circuits are open, but a majority of mine are gone. The signal would get to the lower one and then it would bounce back and forth between the lower two until it got lucky and moved up. Not a whole lot of blood gets moved around when crap like this is going on, and uncontrolled it’ll kill you. They went on to tell us that it might be best if I stayed until I had something in my chest that could prevent that. We thought that was a great idea.
We were told that I would be going down to the Cathlab the next morning to have an “EP” test, (I think it’s called) where it could be verified that I needed a device. I was given a nice brochure showing a nice elderly couple looking over the lake, holding each others hands, and they were discussing how well the test went. It said I would be laid on the gurney with electrical leads placed in stratigic locations, to read a small current of electricity that would be conducted into the muscle. I was informed that I would fall off asleep and after a couple seconds I would wake up and the test would be over. Then I could be wheeled back to the room for coffee and breakfast.
Around 9:30 I started to miss my coffee and by 11:00 I was getting hungry. By 2:00 I was starved and at 4:00 when I finally got a sandwich I was thrilled to have it. Northen Michigan Hospital covers a lot of square miles of sick people, and there were a few it appears, that were in worse shape than me. The next day though, I was number one, and with visions of standing on the shore, I headed for the Cathlab.
It wasn’t long before they started to put drapes on me and plug in electrical leads everywhere. With all the extra stuff those carts have, there was hardly room for me, but I was in a good mood and we joked about what was going on. They wheeled me into a room that had a full lengh picture of a stream on the ceiling and concentrated on that while they worked. I had to roll onto one side as they placed a cold patch on my back, and then another on my chest. They were both 6″ square and had leads coming off of them, and told me that it was used in the test. That was all fine and good until they got out the straps and started to cinch my body to the table.
These weren’t the straps to prevent an arm or a leg from falling off the table, these were wide ones, like the ones they used in the psyc ward at Portsmouth Naval Hospital. The one across my chest was discerning, but the one across my forehead got me a little worried. I still remembered though, that I would be falling asleep and waking up afterwards to walk on the beach. I relaxed and let them do their thing. It was quiet for a minute and then Dr. Levonovitch said “here we go”, and we did. A warm soft rush of well being enveloped me as I drifted to meet the cosmos, to leave all the probl…..”HOLY FUCK! WHY DID YOU COCKSUCKIN’ ASSHOLE FUCKIN’ GODDAMNED MOTHER FUCKERS DO THAT TO ME?!” While I was thinking that, a zillion volts of baseball bat hit me in the body and lifted me right up off the table. I was mortified, I was so close and then they did that to me.
It turned out I failed the test, er passed I guess, because I’ve been fitted with an Automatic Implanted Cardioverter Defibrillator to prevent Ventricular Fibrillation. Should my heart begin beating at an excessive speed for a period of time, it’ll discharge a shock very similar to that one, to get me underway again. The doctors told me that I had a 100% chance of survival when I left the hospital, and those numbers would drop to zero around 17 years later. It’s not designed to keep me alive forever, and I carry the means to turn it off when the time comes. Until then, I stay away from magnets.
I’ll leave the stroke and the bouts with skin cancer for later.
