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Near Commonwealth House (HQ of the Games) – just in case anyone goes hungry
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
I was told I might
not survive.
Thank you, pig
Iain Macmillan
We hearts tend to be taken for granted. Most people don’t pay any attention to us. So it came as a bit of a shock to my chap when he was told he needed cardiac surgery. It was a shock to me too. I had no chest pain, no breathlessness. Nothing. No symptoms whatsoever.
I thought I had done a pretty good job over the years, pumping away, regular as clockwork, in spite of considerable abuse. My chap insisted on eating real butter, fatty milk, and far too much cheese. And he didn’t take nearly enough exercise. He seemed to think a round of golf once a week was all he needed. Even that proved too much for a body like his. It seems that one of his hips got worn out, and he went into hospital for an artificial replacement, which is pretty common these days. Well, he got an artificial replacement all right, but not the one he expected.
They examined him a week before the op and of course they examined me too. He was asked how much alcohol he drank. ‘About 30 units a week’ he said. What a joke! It seemed to me more like 300. But in spite of that I wasn’t worried. I felt fine. A young doctor listened to me with his stethoscope while I kept pumping away; and then to my consternation he said he could hear a ‘murmur’. Before I knew where I was we were lying on a trolley and a nice lady physiologist was attaching wires to us and watching a screen. ‘Well?’ she was asked. And do you know what she said? – ‘One of your aortic valves is obstructed’.
Now I’ve known both these valves for well over 80 years, and neither of them has ever given any trouble. After all, all they have to do is open and close to let the blood in and out as I pump. So there doesn’t seem much to go wrong. Of course I had to accept that the physiologist lady knew what she was talking about, but it came as a shock. I can only think that my muscles must have been strong enough to push the blood through in spite of the obstruction.
But worse was to follow. Now, they said, they needed an angiogram. I don’t really know how that works. I think they must have given me an anaesthetic, because I didn’t know much about it until it was all over, and then they said they had found that two of my arteries were obstructed as well. Well, you can imagine how I felt. Neither of these arteries had ever given any cause for complaint. Of course if it hadn’t been for that stupid hip we would never have known about all this. Well, not until it was too late, if you see what I mean.
He then said it was only right to warn us that there was a 10% risk we
would not survive the operation anyway. At this point I gave up. I felt I had done all I could, and they could just get on with it. I didn’t care any more.
Next thing we were having a consultation with one of the cardiac surgeons. I heard him say that he would open me up and take out my defective valve and replace it with an artificial one. I didn’t like the sound of this at all. I didn’t see how he hoped to get at my valve, since it’s part of me, and of course it’s inside all my bones and things. However, I stopped worrying about all that when he told us what the artificial valve was to be made of. Would you believe? – pig skin! Can you imagine? – a bit of pig skin working alongside all my other perfectly genuine human valves and ventricles and stuff. And then he said he would have to by-pass these two blocked arteries as well.
I thought for one ghastly moment this was going to mean more pig skin, but if anything it was worse than that. He said he would take one of the veins out of my leg and use that. I was dying to ask how the hell I was supposed to do without a vein to take the blood to my toes. But this cardiac person airily announced that this was no problem as I had two veins down there, and I only needed one.
He then said it was only right to warn us that there was a 10% risk we would not survive the operation anyway. At this point I gave up. I felt I had done all I could, and they could just get on with it. I didn’t care any more.
Well, as it happened it all worked out OK. I wasn’t even involved in the operation. They gave me something that put me completely to sleep. Didn’t have to pump any more. Lovely. Got a bit of a rest for once. How they kept the blood flowing I don’t know. Some kind of external contraption I suppose. And they stopped my lungs going also. It’s true. Totally collapsed. No breathing. Must have used a ventilator of some kind.
When I came to it was all over. I was pumping away as if nothing had happened, and the poor old lungs were starting to go in and out just as usual. It took a few days for this artificial valve to learn how to do the opening and closing properly, but what else could you expect of a bit of pig skin? However, they got it sorted out eventually, all these clever doctors and a flock of simply angelic nurses, and now everything seems to be working fine. Extraordinary, would you say? Downright miraculous in my opinion.
Many of you sent kind inquiries and good wishes after the operation, which were much appreciated. We are all making a good recovery, thank you, including the artificial valve.
Only one problem now. My chap has still to get his artificial hip, which is where we came in. However, that’s not my problem. I just hope they don’t use another bit of that pig.
