. . Just in time for Valentines Day too.

============= SHORT VERSION ====================

I'm back home, and taking it easy until I'm sure my heartbeat is
reliably steady. A messed up heartbeat is suboptimal.

Had a bit of a heart attack - version LAD - "The Widow Maker".

Am doing pretty well - no assistance needed.

============== LONG VERSION =====================

Friday morning (11 Feb 2022, 6:00 am) I woke up with intenese pain in my chest, both shoulders, and both sides of my back. In addition I had pain in my bowls of such intensity as I've never experienced before.

I had a good idea what the other pains might be, but not the bowel pain, which resulted in extreme diarrhea. I had to make three dashes to the toilet for explosive dumps before I could take time to dial 911.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department arrived almost instantly,made a quick assessment, ran an EKG, inserted the first IV Catherer, and took me to Huntington Hospital, with sirens wailing. They said Huntington, because I needed a specialist hospital for a problem this severe.

At Huntington, they took COVID swabs, asked some questions, and looked at the Fire Department's EKG. A doctor advised the problem was very severe and gave two options, but strongly advised surgery.

I signed a paper and they wheeled me immediately into surgery. Surgery took 1 hour and 15 minutes. They found my main artery was blocked from groin to heart. They scraped it out and inserted stents for the full length. Then I was wheeled off to a room for recovery, and a doctor told me, "Don't even think about checking out".

There I had 4 IV catherers emplaced (only 2 used at a time, but 2 wore out and had to be replaced. I have been jabbed with more needles than I can count, and 5 vampires came to take blood. My arms are pretty bruised right now.

Every 4 hours, day and night my blood pressure, blood oxygen, and heart beat were measured. They decided I was short of breath and my Oxygen was below 92, their preferred low margin. They gave me an IV drip to dehydrate my lungs, and the doctors were fairly happy, but there was some disagreement among them as to whether or not I had a touch of pneumonia.

They told me they would send me home on Monday, but my heart rhythm went out of control, so they said they wanted to fix that. The preferred cure was getting a special 24 hour IV drip,which might or might not work. So I had to lie on my back until late Monday.

At 20 hours the doctors started planning another, less desirable method, but at 21 hours my heart rhythm returned to normal, so they sent me home on Tuesday, Valentines day.

Nobody had a clue as to how the severe diarrhea was involved with all this.

============== REALLY LONG VERSION ==============

Haven't written it up yet.

They told me to make an appointment with one of the two external cardiologists, one of whom has an office near here. Two external and two internal cardiologists were involved.

They want me to come back in 3 months for an "echo", to see if any more needs to be done. They did take a high resolution ultrasound of the heart. That wasn't easy, of
course, because of ribs in the way.

They have, of course, given me prescriptions for a whole lot of pills with various functions in heart repair, etc. They did seem quite confident they were releasing me in pretty good shape.

Hospital charge: $171,718.01

After Medicare payment and Medicare adjustments, I have to pay $1,556.00 - somewhat lower than I was expecting.

Doing quite well, thank you. There was a real rough spot but it was caused by water retention, fixed by water pills. I'm living an almost normal life now (except having to take all these pills. Just a shade short on breath, but improving.

. . since my diet is so much better than the average American diet, I avoid sugar like the plague, and don't eat processed foods, how come I have these problems you're telling me I have.

No answer or explanation was offered - the question was ignored.