The nurses chatter amongst themselves... they break out a "pack of three". Catheters that is... not condoms. It is too exhausting to try and explain the joke to them. An inscision is made in my thigh and a catheter if fed upwards towards my heart. Its progress is like a tapeworm in my artery.
The procedure goes on for half an hour, at the end of which time the doctor says you will feel some hot flush now. I think middle aged women. A hot flush spreads across my chest, and a second later I feel it in my genitals. The sensation in my chest is like downing a shot of single malt whiskey in one go.
Now comes the time to remove the catheter and to stop the artery from spurting your life's blood over the operation room floor. We are talking big arteries here. They have come prepared with a bean-bag full of lead shot which they will lay on the artery to stem the flow of blood.
The doctor then says "This is going to hurt for 10 seconds" and what you feel is something like a three pronged hook from a spinning reel being sunk into your thigh, and with the hooks firmly stuck in your flesh someone begins to reel you in. The tension on the fishing line becomes stronger and stronger, and your leg is a salmon fighting for it's life. The hook feels like it is torn from your leg, and the angioseal is now in place and with any luck you won't bleed to death.
I am wheeled back to the ward and told to keep my leg staight. I can't do anything else since trying to move it in any direction at all gives me pain.
I sleep and have a vauge memory of the doctor saying you don't have any coronary heart disease.
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