Wow! Into each life a little drama must fall! Glad they figured everything out. I was in the hospital for very low blood pressure after an arrhythmia (?) I got a couple of stents and looked OK for hours, but then things went to hell and I began to gray out. The room filled with 5 or 6 people and one was prepping the paddles to nuke me. They had everything in control in a few minutes. I laid there and thought, yep, I’m in the right place!
Whew, what an ordeal! A well told story indeed. I especially like that you felt removed from what must have been a very scary time. I hope I will be blessed with that emotion should I ever face such a difficult time.
I’m glad you made it through to share your story.
What’s been weird about the event (OK, what hasn’t?) is the mix of world-class surgery and silly, sloppy omissions. I informed the staff about the hot, swollen, painful, footlong mass on my leg while I was still in the hospital. They shrugged it off. It took a visit to my PCP to identify it as phlebitis. And not until today and a special trip to the hospital because it keeps growing did anyone think to prescribe antibiotics for it.
The visiting nurse also told me she’s not allowed to look at my electronic medical records. WTF? Everything she needs to know is in there. They are designed to be passed through the system for all providers. Every time I think of the advances medicine has made I get bumped against a 20th century reality.
Well, if they bring in a jar of leeches, I’d discharge myself AMA.
WOW!!! 
Thanks for the news update, written as always with your customary literary skill. So happy it all worked out. Keep us posted on your ongoing recovery from the “cabbage”. You are a braver man than I. When CABG was recommended in my situation, I freaked out and demanded that they find a way to fix me via PCI (stenting). Which, in fact, in my particular case turned out to be feasible, thankfully!
As your health permits, please keep us posted on how you’re getting on.
You never know with leeches. Sometimes, they’re the best medicine.
That would make a great t-shirt. To sell in the hospital gift shop.
Wow! Welcome back, and may or be for a good long time.
Just wow, Expano! That is amazing and very, very scary. Thank heavens for Room 2 and Specialists who are smart enough to consult other specialists!
Heal well, take care.
Or maggots. Maggots sometimes are just the ticket too.
Hey, I’ve lost a full pant size on the cabbage diet!*
*Claims not evaluated by the FDA. **
** Not recommended for children under the age of ten or adults over the age of ten. ***
*** Side effects may include hospital bill bloat, gowns unsuitable for weddings, that stuff down there, inability to solve cubic equations, teslaphilia, soreness, itching, itchness, soaring, and an aversion to cabbage.
You should have had your CABG at the Cleveland Clinic. ALL the rooms could accommodate 12 people, with room to spare. Really beautiful heart building.
That sounds horrific. I hope that you have a full recovery!
Not that it’s needed but I can confirm everything Exapno said about that hospital’s layout. I had a friend who was there last year and she was in one of the small rooms he describes. The rooms are so small it is difficult to move around in it. I can certainly imagine difficulties arising for somebody trying to perform medical procedures in one of them.
Wow, what a story, brother! Glad you’re still with us to tell it.
Just gotta say, for a guy who chose a username based on Harpo Marx, you use words pretty damn well. 
I’d like to say that it was an extremely clever ploy to homage Harpo because you always knew what he meant even though you couldn’t hear him say anything…
but I never thought of that until much later.
What a harrowing experience. I’m glad you’re doing better Exapno. That was too close.
One of the funnier things that happened to me post-CABG: I was impatient to see whether I could get out of bed. With a lot of trouble, I was able to sit up with my feet on the floor. Suddenly, all sorts of alarms went off, and nurses came running. I got slapped with a “FALL RISK” wrist band (which I still have), and my bed was raised almost to the ceiling. It took me about 2 minutes to figure out how to lower it.
I remember visiting a friend in a long-term care facility and in one of the rooms, the patient was a major fall risk. So instead of raising her bed and installing bigger railings, they put her in a platform bed that was right on the floor with foam “fall zones” around the sides on the floor. So if she fell out of bed (which she had done a lot), she only had a few inches to fall. It was more like rolling out of bed. That seemed very clever to me…
Not wanting the patients to walk around is associated with under-staffing, overwork, and just being lazy and self-interested. Raising the bed is associated with more and worse injuries: the reason hospital beds were high is to place the bed and patient at nursing height: the reason modern hospital beds can be lowered after tasks are completed is to reduce risk and injury to the patient.