So I had chest pain last Sunday, was rushed to a nearby hospital and was lodged at the ICU for over 24 hours. Since all usual tests returned normal results (including BP, ECG etc.), I was asked to do an Echo test and Stress test (on the treadmill – called the Tread Mill Test). And the cardiologist at the nearby hospital noticed some variation in the peak cycle in the tread mill test and advised that I do an angiogram at the earliest to eliminate any doubt.
That was the start. I did ask for a second opinion with one of Bangalore’s leading cardiologists at Vikram Hospital and promptly admitted myself at the same hospital for an angiogram…and angioplasty, if needed, subsequently, depending on the result of the angiogram. Here are my observations about what I went through – they are more amusing than scary, strangely.
1. Having been completely oblivious of what an angiogram entails – like any normal person – I did a quick online read of what it means. The first thing that shocked the wits out of me is that cardiologists’ first choice for the angiogram procedure is near the groin – the femoral vein to the right of your groin, to be precise. As a largely private person who wishes to keep his private parts private, this bothered me terribly, but I found mild solace in the fact that some cardiologists also opt for the same procedure from the forearm. Alas…in my case, the way to a man’s heart was indeed through his groins.
2. The hospital costume! Having rarely been admitted in hospitals (the last I recall was more than a decade ago, while in college, for jaundice), I find this 2-piece hospital costume very funny. It was very loose and something that Mandakini might have preferred in Ram Teri Ganga Maili, though Raj Kapoor had very different, tight, white plans. The most uncomfortable part of this costume was the fact that I was supposed to wear it commando-style, with nothing underneath!
3. The national language of hospitals in India is Malayalam. As if you didn’t know that already.
4. The morning I admitted myself, the first visit was from a man who simply said ‘Shaving sir!’. Here was a man whose predominant task is to shave patients’ private parts! And you thought your job sucked…yeah right!
5. Even for a private person not intending to parade his private parts in public, you’d be amazed at how fast your initial sense of shame and humiliation turns into nonchalance after the first set of people in the hospital witness your private parts when you are in for angiogram. This is the most painful part and is all in the mind – nothing physical at all!
6. I have also never heard more people utter ‘Spread your legs, please’, in one stretch than when you are in a hospital for an angiogram procedure. The only other possible place may be in those shame-shame-puppy-shame films, with the ‘please’ replaced with something more interesting like ‘Baibee’.
7. The actual angiogram procedure lasts less than 5-7 minutes and is alarmingly painless. Most of the pain is in the form of shame that I referred to earlier…that a small group of doctors and attenders in the hospital are witness to your private parts exposed and closed only flimsily. Strangely, this flimsiness level was quite exciting when it was on Princess Leia, but not so exciting when it is on your private parts.
8. After the procedure starts the toughest task – the part near your groin where the doctor found the femoral vein to perform the procedure is so susceptible to bleeding that a nurse actually holds that slit for about 10-15 minutes while you’re lying down semi-drowsy at the ICU. Remember…all this while you’re lying half naked…it’s tough, I can assure you.
9. Even more tougher? Yes, they actually put a really strong, industrial strength plaster in the femoral vein and also keep a heavy weight-like thing over it to avoid any more bleeding. That’s manageable, but you got to stay frozen and not move your leg for 6+ hours after the procedure with the weight on your groin! Jesus…yes!
10. At one point after 3 initial hours, I had this confirmed feeling that my bladder is full and that I had to pee. So, mustering some courage, I put forth this request to the hospital staff. A hospital staff arrived with a clip like thing attached to a tube…which in turn was attached to a plastic bag. He just lowered my already loose hospital pants and clipped that clip-like thing into you know where…! And continued to talk on his mobile phone as if he was waiting for a bus. Now, we humans are so used to peeing in vertical position since the last time we peed in the horizontal position was when we were babies. So, much as I try, I couldn’t deliver and that worried me very, very much. Our friend soon lost interest and asked me to call him again, if I felt sure next time. I decided to not bother the cynical man again and wait my turn to try a vertical pee after the designated 6 hours are finally over.
11. After the 6 hours, as I straddled to the loo to deliver my vertical pee, I knew exactly how Andy Dufresne felt when he finally makes his escape and offered his spontaneously exhilarated, iconic expression. Trust me, I knew.
12. Do you remember a standard scene in most 80s and early 90s masala films when the hero, lying half-dead at the hospital with tons of tubes connected to him, suddenly pulls all those tubes and gets out of the hospital shouting at the top of his voice? I always assumed that those heroes were shouting because they came to know about the impending rape of a sister or the murder of a mother…but now I know better. They were shouting only because of the pain caused by sudden extraction of all those bandages in their hairy chest and arms. For best results, check any Anil Kapoor film where he performs this act usually in the penultimate scene of the film – he was the hairiest of them all and would naturally be shouting the best, as proof. I did too, every time the ECG was taken and every time a plaster was removed from my minimally hairy body…God, this was incredibly difficult!
13. I was told it is completely normal that angiogram patients walk like Frankenstein for 2-3 days post the procedure. I feel better hearing that…was kinda worried about the way I walked this noon.
14. Getting back into civilian clothes after 2 days in hospital costume….the sweetest point in my life in recent times!
If you’re wondering about the result of my angiogram…it was decent. No blocks were identified and only a rogue artery was seen to be pushing blood a bit slowly. So, technically, I had only the precursor to a heart attack last Sunday and that itself is a scary thought. No angioplasty is needed in my case and I can merely cure that rouge artery with simple aspirin-based medication. Comforting thought, that.
The doctor also suggested that I relax and take some rest from everything…work, internet and the blah. So, no more blogging for a week or so, as I head to a resort 50 kilometers from Ooty to just put my feet up and relax most of next week – this week has been mighty tough on me.
Postscript:
There is something seriously wrong with our health insurance process. I found that my bill is usually inflated (doubled) for the insurance company to pay. I came across this first when my wife delivered our daughter 7 months back. This time, while the actual bill was around INR 18,000, I came to know that the bill that was passed to the insurance company was INR 40,000!
This is an atrocious scam! Are insurance companies and hospitals together in this, making corporates and individuals pay more premium? I do not know, but this is just so wrong at many levels. At the basic level, it wasted 4 hours of my life since my insurance company had pre-approved INR 20,000 yesterday (which should have been sufficient to cover my angiogram expense), but since the hospital inflated the bill to INR 40,000, we were made to wait for another approval from the insurance company for the extra amount. Completely unfair and a massive waste of my time. I chose to pay the bill (INR 18,000) using my credit card and claim it later from the insurance company on my own. Yes, cashless hospitalization is a huge benefit indeed, but as much as possible, I’d not like to be a part of this scam. You should have seen the disappointment in the hospital insurance coordinator’s face.