bad day at the blackrock ER

the bardic day began simply enough in the 3:30 am art gallery loft early calm, copying the overnight incoming e-mails and the on-line new york times, boston globe, los angles times, chicago sun times crossword puzzles to wrestle with later during the 6:30 am evergreen café coffee habit in the splake-orson welles booth, suddenly my attention was drawn to a fresh new york times obit which read "sue sally hale, 65, pioneer in u.s. women's polo dies," the cause of death was listed as a ruptured aorta,

immediately I thought, holy waugh, tk, holy waugh, you are 65 years old too, and also the recent examination of my aorta revealed that the enlargement of 4.8 had grown to a 5.1 status, with a new echo sounding test scheduled for early next month,

after the initial shock of noticing sue sally's death, suddenly yesterday's chest discomfort and angina pangs took on a different dimension and emphasis, I retrieved my file-folder covering "aortic aneurysms" and reread the list of 'symptoms' for a dissecting aorta from the top to the bottom, and back up to the beginning characteristics,

complications covered the gamut of rippling sensations in the chest, pain in the back and between the shoulder blades, discomfort often extending to the arms, blockage of the smaller arteries that could lead to stroke, heart attack, nerve damage and kidney failure,

living alone over the OMPHALE art gallery, my worry began escalating into full-blown panicked terror, the brain-skull cavity racing with wild thoughts, "I can't die yet, I've got too many new toys to play with," thinking of my new dell laptop computer, nikon cool-pix digital camera, a state of the arts epson ink-jet printer just delivered and still in the packing box, I also mused, it is spring fishing season in the brave new 03, and I haven't wetted a line on an upper peninsula trout stream either, indeed, I wasn't even certain where my spinning rod and reel and tackle bag might have been store after last summer's anglings, I thought death would rob me of getting married again, selecting a new wife to join the past splake matrimonial chapters of gayle marie, caryl, the swiss miss olga, a fatal big muscle blow would destroy my present dream trystings with ann marie, patrice, kirsten, the blond-haired and tanned girl at the calumet pharmacy, and my eternal splake ghost femme-fille flame, paula,

later after chatting up with mary and linda, my evergreen café morning waitresses over a cup of coffee, I decided, hell tk, you got your blue-cross and medicare insurance policies, so it seemed like a great idea to grab the Monday's 508 post box incoming and take it to the keweenaw medical center's emergency ward, that would allow me to check out the mail and peruse my newspapers while they poked and jabbed and ran the necessary diagnostic exams, thinking if I get to the clinic around l0 am, with luck, I ought to be back at the bard loft before noon and knowing if I have anything truly life-threatening to be worried about,

I explained to the emergency room's admitting nurse that I had been experiencing some chest pain and discomfort, and it was recommended that such symptoms be checked out, and the nurse asked coolly, "who says that," surprised by her unexpected challenge, it took me a moment to formulate a reply, but, I told her "well, it says so in the AARP 'med' alert bulletins, my michigan state retirees newsletters, frequent Sunday newspaper magazine 'health' columns, and, articles often published in the large print reader's digest magazines at the senior citizens drop-in-center library,

almost immediately I was clad in a flimsy ER hospital gown and quickly realized that I was at the mercy of the hospital's air-conditioning, which was threatening to add serious "ice nine" complications to my present afflictions, hooked up to a blinking and beeping med-monitor, blood pressure and pulse rates were measured, a nurse drew blood from a vein for a lab blood chemistry work up, and, a little later, another nurse administered a bedside ekg examination,

informing a young nursing aide that I was able to walk on my own to the x-ray department, I was told in cold steady words it was hospital policy that all patients use a wheelchair for transportation, so I experienced the unbelievable humiliation of being pushed down the hall past the pink flamingo ednas and new car smell rollos gawking at the old man, after moving into the elevator and up a hospital floor level, I was left alone in front of the x-ray department to wait my turn, being a prisoner of the moment, my tattoos were not covered by the flimsy hospital dressing gown, exposing my parrot "zydeco," rainbow trout, black skull and cross-bones, mountain lion, and "I love polish girls" to any and all passing in the hospital hallway, wondering why I didn't have a tin cup, so I could collect some loose change donations from the Monday hospital patrons of the arts,

while waiting for the x-ray technician and pictures of my chest, a nurse wheeled a truly old woman passed me, asking her, "oh, so you have never had a cat scan before," the sad looking lady appearing to be very much confused and disoriented, and I wondered was this what it was like for margaret, my mother's final days at the nursing home in muncie, indiana, mother possessing blue-ribbon health insurance and top of the line medical coverage, yet still at the mercy of modern medical whims and hospital technologies,

back in the ER and my bed and curtained alcove to wait, the old army game of hurry up and wait, drowsing on the bed, a cover warming me against the assault of the ac chills, my mind wandering and returning to the story mike had shared with me during a recent calumet visit and john's family restaurant coffee, mike telling me of his planned move to new mexico to marry rebecca, a younger woman with a nine-year old daughter , halle, the bizzare tale of rebecca's husband suddenly requiring a quintuple coronary by-pass operation, and how after surviving the surgery, all sutured up and given his hospital release, they had stopped at "gila bend springs" on their drive back to indian wells home, gila springs having been a frequent camping and trysting spot for rebecca and her husband ben when they were dating,

once at the springs, ben suddenly leaped into the gila river fully clad , swam across to the other side and proceeded to have a massive and fatal heart attack, leaving rebecca on the opposite bank screaming hysterically, "help me, my husband is dying, please someone help me," at the time rebecca was carrying the embryo of halle who had been conceived during love-making a short time before ben's by-pass surgery,

musing and still at a loss to explain ben's action, was it solely an act of self-destruction, and if he committed suicide, did he consciously know that he had a daughter growing in rebecca's womb, or was his mad behavior fired by something deep, dark, and mysterious in the human soul, had the trauma of such a serious operation been so severe that he possessed an insane sense of male bravado and had to prove to himself, "I am strong, whole, still a man,"

I also recalled my recent conversation with clyde mikkola, an oil painter and artist during an afternoon of chattings at the OMPHALE art gallery, clyde relating how his cousin was in recovery after a recent triple by-pass heart operation at marquette general hospital, and had a fatal heart attack during his recovery, dying in front of the doctor who had performed the surgery and with all of the operating room state of the medical arts life-saving technology at hand,

my hospital dream time was interrupted by the arrival of doctor dennis, clipboard full of test results, wearing an ER jumpsuit, the official physician uniform of the day, and with carefully chosen words explained my tests had been forwarded to my personal physician and that an appointment had been made for me to see doctor lewis at her office in the keweenaw medical clinic complex in two days,

finally my long day at the blackrock ER department was drawing to a close, and it was almost 5 pm when the evening shift nurse signed my release to let me go home, back at the bard loft sanctuary, feeling the incredible exhilaration of "I am home," and being free once again, I cracked open the first of several cold blue-ribbons while waiting on the celtic-nets hoops contest to come on the tv, and, making sure that I knew were the green canvas bag with my smith-wesson 357 insurance policy was located, for the next time, maybe, when it would be necessary.

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