Publishing time for the Advocate last week found me racing around doing chores and attending the Allen Softball Tournament here in Allen. After winning the first game (the girls did it, not me) I returned home all sweaty and while preparing to attend a different kind of meeting I ate, showered and dressed. At 6:50 PM there was a change in my schedule. A severe pain went down my left arm and then my chest. I stopped my little red pickup and parked. I then turned around and went home and called my wife, who by now was attending the 7:00 PM game which I hear we won. After hearing my call for some help she came on home.

By now I was in distress, preparing to meet my Maker. Tim Costner, local doctor (Vet), and Mika Strong, my favorite local P. A., appeared at my bedside almost immediately. After some discussion Doctor Tim drove me to Holdenville General which, after a little time, shoved me in an ambulance headed for the VA in Oklahoma City. The trip up there seemed long but I made it OK.

The VA, as always, took excellent care of me both in the ER and later up on the 5^th floor in their Surgical Intensive Care Unit. Nurses Beatrice, Ronda and Ryan took very good care of me. I was in the midst of a serious myocardial infarction. They were filling me up on large bags of IV’s and heparin and Lord knows what else.

Later on somebody loaded me onto a cart and I was taken to the Heart Catheter Lab where a happy little girl yanked off my gown and she and two other merry workers started poking fresh holes in me and again, no telling what was flowing in. Then the big puncture into my Femoral Artery with a very large needle so they could ram this pipe in my body and work it up to my heart. It had a TV camera on it and I was invited to watch this TV show. Which I did. I had been through this procedure before, four times. The first peek at a graft spliced in ‘04 showed it closed off.

“Ah,” I said to myself, “this is the trouble, fi x it and be well.” “Nope,” the doctor told me, “we can’t fix that.” Another look to another vein and another bad vein was featured. “Thankfully the widow maker vein is still intact.” So this went on and they found this long vein they had put in two stints two years ago. They fi nally finished and went through the ordeal of exiting this big artery and plugging it back up. They told me of several things not to do. No sneezing, straining or moving around for awhile. “If that thing blows out you can bleed out real quick.”

A little later, back in my room (with Beatrice and Ronda looking on) all was explained again and I was given all sorts of directions — which I immediately forgot. And yes, I got the lecture on the plug again. The doctor had not finished his doomsday lecture to me before this plug blew out. Yep. Lots of excitement as blood squirted everywhere. Again, my precious gown was cast aside as the doctor tried to stop up the hole. After a few minutes they put a “stopper” in it held in by a bandage that went all around my body. There was, to say the least, mayhem in the room. And blood. Lots of it and all mine.

I was fixed OK later and after the big cleanup about an hour later, I got some rest and much to my surprise, didn’t die again. Yet. But I was a skeptic who was sent home Saturday wondering if I was going to get to see the OU football game. I saw some and heard most on way home.

Thanks to all who prayed for me or called and especially those who sent food and those of you who know (and feel guilty about it) you should send me some cookies or stuff of that sort. And, as always, don’t forget to go to church Sunday. I always think of stuff like this when I am in an ambulance rushing toward Oklahoma City VA. in the middle of the night.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

waynebullard@sbcglobal.net