Home Again...

Torrington, Connecticut

...or...not down the drain yet.

Yesterday I went to the hospital for a procedure to correct my coronary arrhythmia problem. It was supposed to be outpatient surgery, but didn't quite work out that way. A series of emergencies tied up the operating rooms specially equipped for catheter procedures, so we waited nine hours to get in. The procedure itself, I'm told, went extremely well and test results indicate a high probability I'll be able to resume full normal activity. But spending over four hours under anesthesia during the procedure and recovery, flat on my back, set off a sciatic nerve problem that left one leg inoperable—think of having an arm or leg "go to sleep" on you, raised a couple orders of magnitude. Of course nobody knew yet what was causing the partial paralysis, which was...awkward. The terrible risk of uncontrolled arrhythmia is the possible "side effect" of having a stroke.

Unable to stand or walk, I had to spend the night at the hospital. Around midnight, my leg "woke up." When that happened, I immediately recognized it as consonant with my decades-long experience of lower back/sciatic nerve difficulties. Just a new way to enjoy them. By late morning, my arrhythmia specialist who had performed the procedure—and was more than a bit disturbed by reports about the leg—concurred with my amateur opinion that my sciatica was the probable cause of the temporary problem, so I got to go home.

I'm now going to take an undetermined number of days off.