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From a Scrub's Standpoint

It is amazing, is it not, that little entry wound is the only visible evidence from my miracle medicine week?
It is amazing, is it not, that little entry wound is the only visible evidence from my miracle medicine week? (@HuskerlandBob)

I’d had a headache, off and on, for a couple of days. Nothing serious, but nonetheless there it was, across the crown of my head. Off and on.

Thing is, I don’t get headaches.

Thankfully this time I did.

A week ago Saturday I played 18 holes of golf at hilly, hot and muggy Quarry Oaks Country Club. Aside from some golfing misfires, which I attributed to the first set of new clubs I’ve ever owned, things went great. It’s a beautiful track, I had a few pars, even chipped in for par from a sand trap. Bazinga!

Afterwards, I enjoyed a nice supper at Lazlo’s in west Omaha, mixing a couple of cold ones with my Reuben sandwich. Great day, great night, great friends. Had a little headache but that kind of thing happens after a day in the sun - probably didn’t get enough water to drink.

The Sunday that followed was pretty non-nondescript as I spent the majority of it working on our Huskerland football preview magazine, like I do about every day. Nothing to see here. I did have a little headache but that kind of thing can happen when you spend the day in front of a computer screen.

On Monday morning I woke up (thankfully, and that’s not as big a joke as it used to be) and had a little headache. But that kind of thing can happen when you sleep on your pillow wrong.

Thing is, I don’t get headaches.

From there, assisted by my faithful pooch, 4-year-old Cooper, our Golden Retriever, I made my usual morning rounds, turning the lights on in the living room, turning on my computer, Cooper at my side, before taking him downstairs so he could go out. From there it was back up the stairs to feed Cooper. Our regular routine, and he executed perfectly.

It is also my job to make the morning coffee, which I did and once I had a cup in hand Cooper and I retired to the sofa, where he likes to sit beside me while we get organized for another big day. This one turned out to be a little bigger than most.

Still had that headache, but that kind of thing can happen after you’ve been up and down the stairs (16, I count them), and had a cup of coffee on an empty stomach. Right? Only then I started to feel funny, probably looked a little funny, and not in the chicks-at-the-bar-in-Fargo sort of way. I couldn’t get comfortable at all, and then my scalp felt clammy.

That’s it. I was having a heart attack.

Having never had a heart attack before there was a moment or two of denial - who, me? - before I told Penni the way I felt. Pretty sure she had her own moment of two of denial but soon we were on the phone with the local EMTs. They arrived in a flash, by which time I had migrated to a chair at the kitchen table, Cooper still at my side. They ran a couple of quick tests, fed me some baby aspirin and told me I was stable enough (insert your joke here) to take a private vehicle to the hospital.

With Huskerland Penni making like Richard Petty heading east on Highway 370 we made pretty good time, arriving at Bellevue’s Nebraska Medicine hospital at about a quarter-to-eight. Rush hour. Figures.

A couple of Nitroglycerin tablets later I passed a battery of emergency room tests - gee thanks, Arnold High School education! - and was moved to my room in ICU. Once there I was told I’d be monitored for the remainder of the day with the plan for me to get my heart dye test late Tuesday afternoon - from there, they’d decide what was up.

What was up was my test scores, which continue to rise during the day (where was that when I was taking the ACT), to the point where they moved my test to first thing Tuesday morning. It showed I needed a couple of stents, with two of my primary arteries (are their any other kind?) 95 percent blocked. The first procedure would be tricky enough, and taxing enough, my cardiologist wanted a three-day break before knocking out (pun intended) the second stent. And his little friend, the way it turned out.

Unfortunately some of you reading this have been in this position - the one where you have a heart stent, I mean - and know the drill. It is magnificent medical technology and despite some unexpected challenges the first stent was completed and I felt pretty good, once I warmed up from my stint (not stent) in the operating room. Brrr.

Things were sort of a blur for a couple of days there, but by the time Thursday arrived things had, as Sheriff Bart said when leaving Rock Ridge in the movie Blazing Saddles, gotten pretty boring around here. Funny to say that, having just undergone heart surgery, but that was a fact. Penni and our kids, Shea and Jessie, were with me the entire time and by then all that hospital time, it wears on all of you. Our kids are great - thanks kids, for being more like your mom.

(There comes a time when your sense of anticipation is basically overtaken by the sense there is no such thing as decent daytime TV, know what I mean?)

I’d been told in Tuesday’s postgame that if things went as expected on Friday I would get released from the hospital on Saturday, just in time for a Jensen family gathering on Sunday, partly to celebrate Penni and my 37th wedding anniversary on Wednesday, July 6. (She says these have been three of the happiest years of her life, so I got that going for me...)

And they did go as expected, sorta. Doc knew about the one blockage but it turned out we had a bonus blockage once he got in there. He tidied that up with another stent and chipped away at some other unwanted matter. Doc has a little Coal Miner’s Daughter in him, and that is a high compliment, as I am a big Loretta Lynn fan.

I was awake for the entire second procedure and most of the first, which was a weird sensation. All the medical staff I dealt with at Nebraska Med-Bellevue was professional and fun, never more so than in the run-up to surgery and following the procedure(s). Thanks again to all my new friends, you are truly angels.

So, bottom line, I am now home and doing A-OK. Just got back from a walk and left room for a bowl full of fruit upon my return. It is also Independence Day and, not to go all President Whitmore in the movie of the same name, but my personal plan is to not go quietly into the night, but to live on, because with one voice (it’s just me, man, what did you expect?) I/we celebrate our Independence Day!

Except for the fact we are dependent on each other, and sometimes on your friendly local cardiologist.

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