Humor: Close shave on the cardiac warpath

Close shave on the cardiac warpath

I am pretty sure the stream of people who lifted up my hospital gown and looked at my groin over several days were all either doctors or nurses.

But I cannot be sure.

For all I know, there was a sign at the door saying: "STEP RIGHT UP, FOLKS, FOR A GIG AT MR MARTIN'S GROIN."

"Very impressive indeed," several of the onlookers said when they took a peek.

I can only assume they were commenting medically on the very unusual but extensive black and blue swelling around my upper leg, lower abdomen and nether regions following angioplasty, a procedure in which two stents were inserted to the vicinity of my heart using a thin hollow tube inserted through the large artery at my left groin.

But it is possible, I guess, they were just admiring my very impressive Mohawk haircut.

"I am here to shave the sides of your groin," the man who arrived with a battery-operated razor had said in the ICU ward on Monday night.

I am a shy, modest man. A fear of lying there helpless, exposed, while a perfect stranger shaved my groin did not enthrall me.

I came to grips a long time ago, however, that I had a family history which made me a good target for heart disease. Father, mother, paternal grandfather, paternal great grandfather and numerous relatives on my father's side had succumbed before me, so I figured the odds were against me beating genetics. (Um, a few too many black forest cheesecakes and sausages on toast smeared with butter no thicker than 3cm might have had something do do with it too).

I cannot complain though. I am 44 and before this had only two short stays in hospital — when I was born and when I was five — and no surgery and groin shaving history.

Once the angina symptoms surfaced, there was no mucking around when I sought medical help. I saw my local doctor at 3.15pm on Monday, he booked me in to see a cardiologist less than two hours later and she booked me straight into hospital for an angiogram the next morning.

An hour later, I was in the Intensive Care Unit, wearing a hospital gown and the man with a razor arrived. First, he said, he would shave the right groin, for the exploratory angiogram, then the left side, in case the angiogram showed I needed angioplasty.

"When I finish you'll have a really impressive Mohawk," he promised.

I do not normally exchange small talk at such uncomfortable moments, but I did manage to squeak: "Can't I get a mullet style instead?"

"No, my expertise does not go that far," he said.

So I seemed to have no choice but to lie back and think of bread and excess butter and contemplate all the beeps and bips of the machines around me in ICU.

It occurred to me, as he clipped away, that the real reason you are asked to switch off your mobile phone in hospitals is so that the machines that go beep and bip are not shown up.

My mobile phone, for instance, plays the theme music from Monty Python's Flying Circus. I have heard waltzes, arias, national anthems, football club songs and tunes from the Top 10 on mobile phones.

Sure, the machines in hospitals are life-savers but the reality is they only go bip or beep.

Imagine if someone's heart monitor started blaring something from The Life of Brian.

If everyone were like me, the whole ward would soon be in hysterics reminiscing about the funny scenes.

And this would be in direct contravention with one of the key rules after angio: Don't laugh. The artery they use is a very major blood vessel and it needs a fighting chance to knit back together.

But I certainly was not laughing now. On the scale of 1 to 10 humiliating things to happen to me, being pubicly and semi-publicly shaved rated two.

You have no idea how shattered I was the next day when a nurse on a different shift asked me whether I I had been shaved yet, or whether I wanted to do it myself. I had a choice? Now someone told me!

Worse embarrassment awaited me.

On Tuesday, I had the angiogram. During this procedure, at least six doctors and nursing staff got a good look at my Mohawk.

Then I had to lie still in bed for four hours, and more people came in and took a look.

I was warned that the angioplasty on Wednesday would leave me worse for wear and I would have to lie still afterwards for up to nine hours. No laughing, no coughing, no sneezing.

But I turned out to be a bit of a bad bleeder and was sentenced to stillness in bed for nearly 15 hours. Midway through that, a nurse told me that unless I piddled into a bottle it would become an issue. That's also a two on the scale of my humiliation scale.

Because of my extensive bruising, and the fear of internal bleeding, I spent a day longer in hospital than most angio patients.

And during this time, I had an almost endless parade of people come to my bed so they could check out my impressive Mohawk. As I said, I think all of them were doctors and nurses. Oh, and they had a look at it when they took me over for an ultrasound too.

The good news is that no one laughed.

The bad news is that I have to go through it all again in three weeks when I have further angioplasty.

It might be time to change the jingle on my mobile phone.

I might be able to make it just go Beep.

I think you just have to choose #$%^%#$#$%% in jingle options.

What a curable romantic I am
My friend Orville thinks I am insensitive. I have booked to go back into hospital the day before my eighth wedding anniversary.
"It was the only date I could get," I protested.
Um, this was not strictly true.

All stressed up, no way to mow
I should have known that you get what you pay for.
I bought a push mower for $5 at our local recycling centre last week.
"Hey," I told my wife Katherine. "Who cares if I does not work too well. It will give me some good aerobic exercise pushing it."

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it