Sunday, January 10, 2016

GTB Special Correspondent: Chronicles of an Aging Gheorghie

In the last installment of what's rapidly becoming the best recurring bit in G:TB history, Dave Fairbank coined the phrase 'Lindsay Graham Dance Party', and told of the atrial flutter his physicians sought to correct. Turns out the first efforts didn't take, so if at first you don't succeed...I guess you get your groin shaved. I'll let @fairbankobx explain.

Let me begin with praise for medical talent and progress, and by saying that nothing prepares you for the day quite like an early morning groin shave. 
Not the top of Dave Fairbank's penis

People gripe about access and cost and availability of health care, with plenty of justification. But if you’re fortunate enough to make it into the pipeline, it can be nothing short of incredible.

I was wheeled into an operating room at Norfolk Heart Hospital at 9 a.m. for a cardiac ablation, a procedure designed to return my heart to its normal rhythm. Seventy-five minutes later, they were done. By 11 a.m., I was awake in a recovery room. Three hours later, I walked a lap around the floor of the cardiac wing. I probably could have done so earlier. They discharged me before 3 o’clock, and I was home by dark.

Doctors inserted catheters into veins on each side of my groin and snaked them two feet into my heart. They identified the bad electrical circuitry and deadened it. They removed the catheters, leaving only two tiny puncture openings. All without killing me or my heart doing the Mother Popcorn or even the briefest interruption of service.

I moved gingerly in the hours afterward, but basically had no pain. Pulling off the tape and gauze around my groin the next day was the most painful part of the entire ordeal.

In today’s cardiac medicine, this is considered a fairly routine procedure, with an absurdly high rate of success. My doc told me: If you’re going to have a heart condition, this is the one to have.

Fucking amazing.

The last time I posted, I had just gone through a less invasive procedure to correct an atrial flutter. It was a variation of what I believe is known in rendition circles as the Iraqi Jump Start. The electrical shock worked initially, but it didn’t hold. A follow-up visit revealed that the flutter had returned.
I had a consultation with an electro-cardio specialist, an engaging 40-something chap whose name was misspelled on the office outer door, but in 10 years said that he never insisted that they correct it.

From the printout of my EKG, he said that he was 95 percent certain where the arrhythmia originated – in the passageway wall between my left atrium and left ventricle, the upper and lower heart chambers. He was at least that certain that he could correct it, and that the fix would be permanent.

Which is how I came to be at the Norfolk Heart Hospital at dawn on a recent morning. When I was escorted into a room to prep for surgery, a nurse instructed me to strip naked, put on one of those hospital gowns that provide full moon shots from behind, and lie on the bed. A second nurse came in, and the two inserted an IV in each arm for the anesthesiologist.

There are terrible tattoos, and then there's this
The second nurse sat down alongside the bed. She pulled out a small razor and said it was time to shave me. She wadded up the gown around the package, exposing my upper leg, and began to shave.

Me: This is why you got into nursing, isn’t it? Saving lives, shaving groins.

Nurse: I love shaving. You see my name is Lorrie. That’s short for Lorena.

Laughter all around.

Me: Yeah, but she didn’t shave, she chopped. I hope you’re better than that.
Nurse: Oh, I am, honey.

Thus began an exchange among the three of us about Lorena Bobbitt, her motives and whether she did any jail time for her butchery on hubby John.

Properly shaved, they wheeled me into an operating room. The anesthesiologist quickly ran through what he was going to do and asked if I understood. I said sure, but it was all kind of an anxious blur at that point. I said to him: Anesthesiologists throw the best parties, don’t they? He said, of course, but not for the reasons you might think.

I scooted from the gurney onto the operating table and apologized in advance for any flatulence or other discharges during the procedure.

Anesthesiologist: What, did you eat beans yesterday? That wasn’t very considerate.

Me: No, not at all. Had a normal meal last night. But I’m a 57-year-old guy and there’s no telling what I might expel when I’m unconscious. Just letting you know.

Shortly thereafter, boom, I was out. I awoke a couple hours later, a little groggy, but intact. My throat was the most uncomfortable part. They intubated me in the O.R., in order to snake a camera down my throat and check my heart for clots or other abnormalities before the procedure. My throat was pretty raw for a day and I sounded like the Men’s Wearhouse guy, George Zimmer (“You’re going to like the way your heart beats, I guarantee it.”).

I had to lay still for the next couple of hours, while nurses monitored vital signs and made sure my groin didn’t bleed. The doc told my wife shortly afterward that the procedure had gone even more smoothly than he anticipated and came to the recovery room and told me the same thing, just before he was scheduled to perform another ablation. During my original consultation, he said that he’d done almost 1,000 of them.


A few days later, I’m pretty much back to normal. I am grateful and blessed beyond words. An itchy groin reminds me that amid the conflict and nastiness and general dumbassery to which we are routinely exposed, there are smart, talented people who perform the extraordinary on a daily basis. 

May we all have such itchy groin moments.

36 comments:

Danimal said...

Thank you KQ. No plans to ship, at least in the short term but will keep you posted. Funny enough, many of the treats are not only edible, but pretty good. The raw stuff, not so much.

For those that don't care about the Ducks, they won 35-0 yesterday, outclassing a team that looked exactly like we did a year ago - first-time players & first-time coaches. Declanimal had 2 TD receptions, a TD pass, and a run for a 2-point conversion. The best thing about it is he just comes right off the field with nary a reaction.

Danimal said...

And Dave, glad to hear the ticker is back on time.

Danimal said...

On Making A Murderer, my only beef is the Game of Thrones music rip-off.

zman said...

Speaking of beef and thrones, my morning poop cannot be characterized as small or middling.

zman said...

And I'm glad to hear that Dave F is doing well. There's nothing like having someone else shave your delicates.

Dave said...

good work, dave-- i don't know if i would have been as amenable to joking if i was getting my groin shaved.

danimal, i said the same thing to my wife last night about "making a murderer."

Danimal said...

Bud Grant donning golf shirt (yes he has pants on too) for the Minny coin toss. Fve degrees. 88 yrs old.

Danimal said...

Five. Or -5. What's the diff at that point right?

Marls said...

Given Dave's general central NJ hairiness, I assume groin shaving would have to be done with a weedwhacker or machete. That's enough to make anybody cranky.

Dave F, glad to hear the ticker is back in the groove.

mayhugh said...

Maybe it's too easy or obvious, but I love the use of Freeze Frame going into commercial breaks for this game.

rob said...

i may have said this before, but that kind of cold is literally stupefying. was in minny this time last year and the high temps were in the negative single digits. it's hard to think about anything other than the cold while you're outside. can't even imagine playing in it for three hours.

mayhugh said...

Yeah, probably not the best weather to be playing for the field goal, huh?

T.J. said...

LACES OUT

zman said...

But those Skins though.

TR said...

Watching goal line plays, all I can think about is how many minor concussions are happening b/w the linemen colliding into each other.

Why aren't Troy and Joe calling out DeSean for worrying more about avoiding a hit than about getting the ball on the inside part of the pylon?

rob said...

it won't matter. the packers are ass.

Danimal said...

They really are.

Mark said...

Skins aren't exactly elite though. Those five point the Skins left on the field seem like they'll be a factor with the way things have changed in the second quarter.

Packers D is pretty solid and getting really aggressive in coverage. I could see a pick 6 coming at some point.

zman said...

Michael Strahan's tailor doesn't know how to make a vest.

Danimal said...

That ball was totally catchable. He was unable to go up for it.

Danimal said...

Rob...who lives in this nape of the woods that is related to you?

Danimal said...

Kate Hudson has been working the planks. Hubba hubba.

And it was 34 years ago that Montana threw the pass.

Oh my....Kirsten Dunst showing some serious inside side boob. Hubba hubba.

T.J. said...

Kirsten Dunst just showed off all her titties

Danimal said...

Channing Tatum with a premature comb over

Danimal said...

Jennifer Jason Leigh w a brand new face!

rob said...

my sister lives there, danimal. they've got a couple of beasts.

and ricky gervais is a fucking genius.

Danimal said...

We like customers.

If you haven't watched the original Office, it is a must.

rob said...

i'm through august. there's light at the end of the gheorghemas tunnel.

Mark said...

I watched the Golden Globes opening specifically because of Gervais. He should be the permanent host.

zman said...

Jaimie Fox's daughter whippin out boobies too.

rob said...

i assume whitney took his mulligan today. we may hear from him on wednesday.

Mark said...

For me, at least, Twitter is the best thing that ever happened to awards shows.

Shlara said...

Lots of side book and cleavage at the Golden Globes tonight.
And, does Calista Flockhart know she looks scary with that Joker-style face work?

On a serious note, go see Spotlight.
That movie is phenomenal.

Brooklyn is also excellent, but I'm not sure it may be too chick-focuses for the Gheorgies.

Shlara said...

I meant side BOOB
Stupid spell check

Whitney said...

Mulligan taken, and for naught. Damn them.

Truth be told, the wagon tipped late last night. Good stories not for any :TB.

Whitney said...

But Shlara mentioning side boob (twice, once with emphasis) is also quite good.