This week has been devoted to my heart, and I guess that’s a good thing. I spent about 10 hours in a hospital getting testing, and all day Friday getting counseled on the surgery, which is scheduled for early Monday morning.

I got a Covid-19 test and passed, got several pages of documents detailing what I could and couldn’t do, and spent a half-hour on the phone with nurses going over my medications and insurance.

I see that insurance company co-pays are going up swiftly.

One or two of the vessels feeding blood to my heart might be closing or weakening, and so early Monday, they’ll knock me out and a surgeon will probe the vessels.

Quite amazing when you think about it.

They will either clean them out or put tiny stents into the vessels to bolster them.  They’ll put a catheter in one of my arms or leg and travel up from there.

The nurses say I should go home by Monday evening, but that the procedure will take five or six hours. Sometimes, patients are held overnight.

And they are recommending strong Tylenol.

I will almost certainly go to sleep from the medications I’m given, but will not be under general anesthesia or on any breathing tubes. The procedure is broken into two-part, two hours each.

Then I have to stay behind for two more hours to make sure I’m okay. A nurse will call Maria when it’s time for her to come pick up me.

The good thing about Open  Heart Surgery is that everything that follows seems minor. This seems fairly routine to me.

And if they are okay with my riding my bike this weekend, then it’s on the routine side.

I asked Donna the nurse if I could be home writing Monday night, but she just laughed and went on explaining the procedures.

I told her I was home and working three days after Open Heart Surgery, and she didn’t seem impressed.

Take it easy for at least 24 hours she said. I’ll talk to your wife, she added,  “you seem like a troublemaker.”

I don’t think I care to mess with a tough nurse.

I don’t guess you will be writing much Monday she said. We’ll see about Tuesday.

Hospitals are different now, you don’t go anywhere without having your temperature taken, and answering the questions I now know by heart: got a cough or fever, traveled lately, been in any large gatherings, have a headache, or shortness of breath.

There are tension and fatigue in the air at hospitals, as well as a lot of hustling. It’s been a hard time for the people working there.

I have to answer those questions five or six times a day, in person and on the phone. I can’t take any diabetes medications that day, and only half of the insulin I usually take the night before.

I’m somewhat anxious about this catherization, of course, but I’m also grateful. This is not a treatment that existed even a few years ago, or that many people in America can get without insurance.

I’m not riding my bike today. It’s hot and my legs are pretty tired from yesterday.

It is an outrage that treatment like this should be so tied to money. I give thanks that I can afford to do it, and I hope I never forget how many people in America could never get the treatment I am getting.

That is so wrong.