The procedure went smoothly and I was able to watch the monitor as the surgeon snaked a catheter up from my groin to a major coronary artery.  The blocked place was easy to spot, and he inserted a stent to keep it open.

Opening an artery is a very serious matter.  If it starts bleeding, it can be life-threatening.  The patient has to lie flat on his back and absolutely still for twenty-four hours.  Nurses at my first hospital had been wonderful, but here I was attended by a woman who was Nurse Ratched without the charm.  She seemed to resent the fact that patients needed her help.  Finding it difficult to manage the bedpan flat on my back, I asked for her help.  She acted as if it were a dirty-minded request and responded by threatening me, “If you can’t manage the bedpan, we will catheterize you.”  Finally, I did manage, and the twenty-four hours were up.

Another patient had told me that closing up the artery can be painful as well as dangerous.

“Who is to perform this delicate operation?”

Nurse Ratched gave me the grim news:  young Mr. Sizzorhands, the very technician whose previous efforts to hurt me had been foiled, would now have a really good shot at it.  I told her I wanted someone else to do it.  She made it a battle of wills.  “He is the only technician available.”

“I am not going to let that guy lay another hand on me.”

We went back and forth.  Finally I said, “Let me speak to the doctor.”

She said she would see what she could do and, after a time, she returned with a young Asian-American attendant.  He had the hands of an angel.  I didn’t feel a thing.