[Leica] OT My night and three days in the hospital

[lluisripollquerol at gmail.com (Lluis Ripoll)]

Herbert,

I hope you have a fast recovery and be soon at your normal activity  
using cameras!

cheers
Lluis



El 14/07/2012, a las 22:54, Herbert Kanner escribi?:

> Sorry, no photographs. I am the proud owner of a brand new  
> pacemaker. Here is the story:
>
> Ever since April, I have been having some bad days where walking a  
> block was a problem; I'd get painfully out of breath. The evening  
> that I met Richard Man at a gallery was the third of three  
> consecutive days when this problem got severe--I barely managed to  
> stagger from my car a block to the gallery, though by the time I had  
> been there for a few minutes, I felt fully ok.
>
> The following Monday morning, I saw my pulmonologist on a scheduled  
> appointment. (Now I have to decide whether to fire him for extreme  
> inattention to a possibly dangerous situation.) I described the  
> increase in my symptoms in detail. One of them was missed  
> heartbeats. It started months before, when I noticed that after  
> activity, I would lose one heartbeat out of ten. I had already  
> mentioned this to the cardiologist and got no reaction; an internet  
> search indicated that if not accompanied by chest pains, not to  
> worry. But it had worsened to where, after any moving around, it got  
> to where, after two beats it would skip one, then maybe after a bit,  
> three beats then skip one.
>
> Well, especially since it could very well have been partially due to  
> a side effect from a new drug he had prescribed, he wrote out an  
> order for blood tests and for me to come back the next morning. When  
> I took the order to a lab, they pointed out that he had forgotten to  
> put his name on it (!!!!!) and they had to call him on his cell  
> phone to get authorization.
>
> The next morning, July 10, he looked it over, saw anemia--again yet  
> another one of the myriad side effects of this drug--suggested  
> stopping it for two weeks and seeing him them. What bothers me is  
> that he was not in the least alarmed.
>
> I had a standing appointment for an annual physical that very  
> afternoon, did not feel up to it and phoned to cancel it. About an  
> hour or so after that, I decided that I was getting scared, called  
> back, told what was going on, and the doctor's nurse said to come  
> in--that they'd fit me in and would do an EKG.
>
> I cooled my heels for a while after the EKG. The doctor was not  
> happy with it and took it to a cardiologist, came back and told me  
> that sending me home was too risky and that she had arranged for me  
> to go right to the emergency room. I phoned my wife, who had a bit  
> of trouble absorbing this startling info in a hurry over the  
> telephone, but eventually got it and ferried me there--I had an ok  
> on leaving my own car at the doctor's parking lot.
>
> After a relatively short time, considering that it was an emergency  
> room at Stanford Hospital, they told me that they were admitting me  
> to the hospital. That was Tuesday night. All day Wednesday, the  
> electro-cardiologists were trying to make up there mind whether or  
> not I should get a pacemaker. I wound up making the decision for  
> them. Around noon on Wednesday, my wife was visiting while I was  
> eating lunch--hospital food has sure improved--and just as I leaned  
> forward to pick up a shrimp by the tail and bring it to my mouth, I  
> felt dizzy for just two or three seconds. Thought nothing of it.  
> Didn't even remember that I was supposed to tell the nurse if I got  
> dizzy--got mildly chewed out for it later. Early that evening a  
> cardiologist walked in with a printout in his hand, asked: "Were you  
> dizzy today?" showed me a monitor printout that indicated that my  
> heart had stopped for about six seconds. He said: "You need a  
> pacemaker".
>
> One was installed the very next morning. The amazing thing is that  
> it's all done with local anesthetics and extremely mild sedation.  
> The procedure took about an hour. I didn't get out until late the  
> next afternoon because it took all day to arrange a couple of ten  
> minute procedures: an x-ray to make sure the pacemaker wires were  
> where they should be, and a session where an expert nurse- 
> practitioner who tested and reprogrammed the thing by inductive  
> coupling to a specialized computer program.
>
> That's how I spent a week. No photography.
> -- 
> Herbert Kanner
> kanner at acm.org
> 650-326-8204
>
> Question authority and the authorities will question you.
>
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