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Poetry

Poetry

Prithwish Banerjee, MD, Consultant Interventional Cardiologist and Head of Heart Failure Services, Department of Cardiology, University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire, United Kingdom

March 2009

I. Primary Angioplasty (doctor)

Sarah’s cheerful face

Popped through the cath lab door, “There’s an inferior MI in A&E 34-year-old man. Other lab is busy.”

I had just finished Angio-Sealing

The last double-vessel PCI;

“Ready when you are Sarah,” I smiled. “Primaries are always a pleasure.”

In four minutes our man was wheeled in, slightly drowsy but still in pain. I speak calmly to him, then

Check the consent form. “Start the Reopro please. We’ll go femoral.”

As expected, the right coronary artery Is occluded with thrombus. As I pass a BMW wire

There’s TIMI-2 flow. “I’ll have a 2.5 by 15 balloon,” I say

To my assistant. The balloon inflation

Restores flow completely. “Can I have a 3 by 16 Taxus please?” I

Ask again. The final result after stent deployment is excellent. The tombstone ST elevation on the ECG has settled.

Our patient is blissfully asleep. Satisfied, I take the Angio-Seal shot.

II. Primary Angioplasty (patient)

Like a nuclear explosion

It went on

And on

Blowing my heart

To smithereens.

Raging inferno In the chest,

Arms like lead,

Sweat on my palms

Sweat in my hair

Gushy waves of sickness

Thundered through my body.

My mind was screaming

Into a black hole,

A sea of pain and more pain;

There were distant voices...

“STEMI…air ambulance is best… Phone the cath lab…”

Someone was doing something to my arm.

I felt a sudden sweetness

Sweeping my body,

My mind was calmer

And drowsy…floating away…

“You are having a heart attack, sir. We need to open the blocked heart artery. Could you sign on that line?”

They were shaking my shoulders hard. I scribbled in a haze of drowsiness and pain.

I remember being rushed

On a trolley

A blur of

Banging doors

Then silence and

The intense cold

In the lab.

Crisp commands slashing the silence, “Start the Reopro please. I will have a 2.5 by 15 balloon.”

The voice was strong and confident. What was he asking for next? A daxus? Suddenly the pain was

Gone.

Relief was flooding in

And fatigue…extreme fatigue.

Too tired to breathe …can’t think…

Lead eyes…


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