I was really planning on going to work in the morning until 09:00, when I'm supposed to be there for the prep. I won't actually have the cath done until 11:00 or after, if things go right for the two patients preceeding me. And I really hope that things go right for them, even though I have no idea who they are, I just know that until they get done, I can't have the table.

And there are three things that can happen: 1)There won't be anything there to do anything about (20%) 2)There will be a significant lesion that they can balloon (50%) 3)There will be more than one significant lesion that they can't balloon (30%).

It's only the latter that I'm worried about, of course. And what I'm thinking is... the last cath that I had done showed some lesions beyond the one that they ballooned and stented. Like, more than 50% occluded, rather restricted. That was the LAD, left anterior descending. But the artery that I had done in '96, the right circumflex, was only ballooned, that was before they started putting stents in. And the pain that I was having Wednesday was very similar, enough to make me think that it's the same artery.

And I remember that one being a real bitch for the cardiologist, he damn near gave up on it before he got lucky and got the catheter to go just right.

And those arteries are eight years older now, dammit.

Anyhoo, if they can't get it, I still have two choices. Remember, I've had no problems since Wednesday, which means... what the hell *does* that mean? That I've been lucky? That the clot that was doing the occluding broke up on it's own? Anyway, one of the choices is to do nothing.

The other choice is to get my chest cracked.

Easy choice? Not at all.

The problem with doing nothing is (no, the answer is not "...you never know when you're done.") that you have no clue about when that might happen again. And if what happened, the cardiac incident that I had Wednesday, happens again, I'm dead meat, because I'll need to get my chest cracked *right then*, and thangs don't work thataway.

Especially since I really haven't a clue as to why what happened happened.

Maybe it was just a rogue clot, broken off from an insignificant lesion upstream. Maybe it'll never happen again. Yeah, right.

So, OK, back to getting the chest cracked: it's a miserable experience, from what I've heard, and from what I've seen. On the good side, we lose very few patients, and the ones that we do lose are high-risk ones.

Enough of that, I'll take it as it comes, either way. It's nice to be able to write it out, though.

In other news... I got to sleep about 23:00 last night and woke up at... 03:00. And I Just. Could. NOT. Get. Back. To. Sleep. Until 06:15, anyway, and my alarm went off at 06:30.

Work was OK, fairly busy, but I was on the console most of the day, so that was OK. I got to go over to the Z and finish up a drainage procedure so that the early guy could go home, that was fun, as always.

Came home and played some music, and Karen fixed me a coupla jellyburgers for supper, and that was *really* good. Grape jelly on a hamburger just can't be beat!

Oblate, majestic,
The imperfect moon glares at
his helpless subjects

On that note, I wish to share a poem that my mother wrote for me... or against me, as it were:
Firstly, she sez: I got no time for verse that don't rhyme!

There is an old geezer named ???? Who's becoming increasingly smug. If he keeps up this pace He will fall on his face And bruise his nose on the rug.

22:36...
Just got back from the hospital, the second-shift tech broke the table while trying to do a 400-pound patient. So it's me and the Z tonight. But I think that the third-shift tech is coming around, she can at least do heads over there now, so I came on home. Anything more complicated, though, and I'll have to go back in again.

And really, being tired tomorrow is no big deal, I'll have plenty of resting time. I do want to be alert when I'm on the table, though, and I'm gonna be pretty insistent that they not give me any drugs for the procedure, I really want to see what's going on, y'know?

Unfortunately, they don't say, "you can either have the drugs when you're having the procedure or you can have them afterwards", dammit. Afterwards is when I want them, after all. I should be allotted X amount of drugs, to use at *MY* chosen time, heh.

Enough. Karen is waiting to give me a backrub, and we have a houseguest, Lacee is staying the night with us, sleeping on the couch.