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was irrigated, and I was given a tetanus booster and my hepatitis titers were tested. For the next year, I had monthly baseline blood work, was checked for signs of infection, and did lots of worrying but fortunately didn’t get sick.
    Years later, I was a more reluctant patient when I became pregnant. At a pre-natal checkup, a doctor listened to my heart and sent me straightaway to a high-risk pregnancy clinic. When I protested what I saw as his excessive caution, he gave me a stern reality check. “You could get into serious trouble, go into heart failure or cardiac arrest. Your baby might not receive enough blood supply or oxygen.”
    Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. Never mind
.
    Luckily, all went smoothly during the birth, and both times my babies were healthy. However, as I was leaving the hospital, two days after the birth of my second baby, the obstetrician warned, “You need to be followed by a cardiologist. Your valve is getting worse.”
    A day later, at home, I felt terrible – I had never felt so unwell. True, I was exhausted, but isn’t every new mother? Harder to explain away were my swollen ankles and the difficulty I had sitting and breathing. When I listened to my chest with my stethoscope and heard the wet crackles in both of my lungs, I knew I was in congestive heart failure. Fluid from my heart was backing into my lungs. I swallowed a few Lasix tablets I had stashed away, which I kept on hand in case of just such an occurrence, and took it easy,laying low for a few days until the diuretic got rid of the excess fluid my heart couldn’t handle.
    [Public Service Announcement: Do not try this one at home, folks. Don’t do as I did. Seek treatment from a doctor or other health care professional if you are in congestive heart failure. It’s a medical emergency.]
    That was twelve years ago and I can’t believe I’ve made it this far with a heart like mine.
    Then there was an evening, two years ago, working in the ICU with Cara, a young, pretty nurse fairly new to the ICU at the time. She was busy with her patient on the one side of the room, and I was busy with mine on the other, when two things happened. My patient, a seventy-two-year-old man, three days post-op thoracic aneurysm repair, became violent and confused. At the very same time, a sharp pain rose up from deep inside of me and grabbed me at my back.
    “Those guys next door … Tell them to deal me in! Now!” my patient shouted at me from his bed. I clutched my side as he craned his neck, trying to peer into the next patient’s room. The pain was sharp.
Yikes, what is this?
    My patient pulled at his IV tubing, then yanked it out of his vein. “I’m out of here,” he yelled, throwing off the covers and banging on the siderails. Dark red blood splattered his sheets. “Give me my balloon! I’m going to the party.” He grabbed so hard at the IV tubing that the pole toppled to the floor with a crash. Luckily he had sedation ordered and had another IV site in his neck. With shaky hands, I drew up five milligrams of Valium in a syringe and made my way over to give it to him.
If I can get him calmed down, I can figure out what’s wrong with me
.
    He eyed me warily. “If you come near me with that, I’ll scratch your eyes out.” He fumbled around with his arterial line, then inone fell swoop ripped that out, too. Now, bright red blood was pumping out from his artery, spraying in an arc around the room.
    I retreated to my side of the room, panting with pain that was by then excruciating.
He’ll bleed to death without pressure on that artery
. I called over to Cara for help, but she had already come running when she heard the IV pole crash. “Take over for me!” I yelled. I had no choice but to leave her alone with two unstable patients, one of whom was combative. As I staggered down to the emergency department, lurching along hospital corridors and vomiting into a plastic bag, I heard, “Code White, Code White, Medical-Surgical ICU”