AFFAIRS OF THE HEART

There's an old saying (which, like all those Old Sayings, is trite but true): “It isn't what you have in your pocket that makes you thankful, but what you have in your heart.”

Which - in unromantic terms - is what I've been worrying about for the past eighteen months since a hospital test suggested that I had something in my heart that oughtn't to be there - to wit, one or more malfunctioning arteries.

Finding out what's going on in a person's heart is far easier and more prosaic than the poets ever imagined: you undergo a coronary catheterization (it's OK, you don't have to click on that link!) which provides photographic evidence of what, if anything, is not tick-tocking properly within your ticker.

After several postponements (due to infections resulting from the drugs I take for arthritis) and one painful aborted attempt when they couldn't insert the catheter through which to pass the camera, yesterday was the designated date for the next attempt.

Then, over then weekend, it looked as it would once again have to be postponed when I started having a serious plumbing malfunction which led to my spending most of Monday in A & E fully expecting to have a rather different kind of catherterization. Despite the discomfort I was in, I was secretly comforted by the thought that, at least, I wouldn't have to go through the next day's cardiac test.

But medication was provided and I very quickly started recovering and was deemed well enough to go back to the same hospital the following day for my heart to be investigated. So, screwing the courage to the sticking place - I was, I freely admit, totally terrified - I turned up at the Cardiac Catherterization Unit at King's College Hospital prepared (in my most Eeyore-ish state of mind) to find out the Worst...

Even before I arrived at my bed, I passed a door bearing a sign that said it all...


Several anxious hours later, I was lying on my back with a mini-camera crawling through my chest grabbing snaps of my heart that were being televised on a screen above my head. Frankly, I'd have sooner been watching re-runs of the worst-ever TV shows of the 20th Century...

Anyway, with the aid of wonderful sedatives (I wanted to bring a supply home for recreational use, but they weren't having it!) and a fabulous team who talked me through the whole experience rather in the way that those cool, calm and confident Air Traffic Controllers used to talk down failing aircraft in '50s 'B' movies, I --- they, we --- got through it and the Good News - which was like someone vanishing that sword of Damocles that had been hanging over me since Spring 2007 - was that my heart was FINE!

All wasn't entirely plain-sailing: the artery in my groin being deep and difficult to get into - I always knew I had depth! - led to a lot of rather painful prodding and poking. Then, afterwards, the self-dissolving plug which is used to stopper-up the entry point refused to go into the puncture hole which resulted in the doctor having to apply a great deal of pressure for rather a long time to stop the bleeding. By far the worst bit was having to lie perfectly still for four hours while all the other patients in the ward were merrily toddling off home.

But that was a small price to pay for long-needed peace of mind. David fed me chicken mayo sandwiches and sips of tea through straw and when I was finally able to totter round the ward to see if I sprang a leak (thankfully, I didn't) gave me a firm arm to lean on - although, to tell the truth, I'd been leaning on him quite heavily, one way and another, for the past month or more...

Of course, I still have the arthritis and the hernia and the asthma and several other faulty fittings, but the HEART is, as I say, fine! Fine! Nice word, that! I like having a fine heart!

Like undertakers, doctors have a very particular sense of humour. Here's a sample from a note-board in my ward. It used to be said that the way to man's heart was through his stomach, but, apparently, not so...


Images: 'Heart' by Heather Garland; 'Door' and 'Noteboard' by David Weeks