[BearwWthoutBorders] Note from Jyri: Pacemaker for his father, and all OK (and related thoughts from me)

[Hunter Gray]

This is an interesting and welcome little account that, in the last analysis, speaks well for Jyri's father's basic good health and resilience and "Western medicine" (about which I can be very schitzy) and the Finnish health care system (despite a few minor bureaucratic ripples.)  For any of us who may have actual or potential heart problems, this is reassuring. I seem to have escaped heart things  but did, of course, have two consecutive cardiac arrests in the course of  a botched and unnecessary colonoscopy in the very initial stages of my late Lupus War back in early September 2003. During these cardiac arrests, I was sitting peacefully in a dark tunnel similar to a "drift" in a hard-rock mine.  When I eventually emerged, I found about a dozen frantic heart docs in the room -- in addition to the frightened colon doc,  Within a couple of days, my ticker was completely normal and remains so.  Again, this from Jyri is reassuring,    H.

Dear Hunter,
Here on the home front, my father got a pacemaker yesterday. He had a fainting spell in town on Friday and had felt dizzy over the weekend with occcasional high blood pressure  (home monitored). His wife is recovering from a shoulder operation, so I took him straight to the hospital on Monday, without a referral from the local health centre as per regulations if you're not a casualty case. He and I both had to make a fuss to get him admitted:  "You want this man to die here in the lobby?" (in a slightly raised tone of voice) . Of course, he wasn't dying, but they couldn't know that and as taxpayers we pay for the public health, and not for the bureaucratic rigmarole. A childish and basically incorrect attitude, I admit, but it gets things done.
Tests showed that my dad's heart was otherwise OK but with a poor " electrical connection" from one part to another. They kept him there and he had the operation yesterday with local anaesthetic. They slipped the pacemaker under his skin with wires to the heart. He'll be discharged today. 
I went to see him a few hours after the operation. He was like a new man. Before the op, the heart rate monitor above his bed had shown a slow 40 - 42 and he was obviously tired and  slightly pale. Now, the HR was a steady 61, colour in his cheeks, and the guy was like a Duracell rabbit. Chatting away, half-flirting with  the nurses, joking with the doc. I couldn't get him to stop. 
Till later,
Jyri


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material)

See my reflection On Being a Militant and Radical
Organizer -- And an Effective One:
http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Expanded, and with more photos in Fall 2012. Material on our Native
background.)  And see Personal Background Narrative: 
http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm  (Updated into 2012) 

For the new (11/2011) and expanded/updated
edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- 
with a new and substantial introduction by me.  We are now at 
the 50th Anniversary of the massive Jackson Movement
of 1962-63:  http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.mayfirst.org/pipermail/bearwithoutborders/attachments/20121206/7e6c65e3/attachment.html>