102 – Staying Alive, Part 2: 21 November 2024

 

 

The Chain Saw Operation

After the TOE test and the angiogram, I had to see heart surgeon Dr James Edwards.  He conditionally agreed to do the Chain Saw Operation on Tuesday 20 November 2018.  Before Dr Edwards could definitely agree to do the operation, I needed approval from the anaesthetist.  There could not be an operation at all unless the anaesthetist thought I had the strength to survive the operation.

I saw the anaesthetist on Thursday 15 November 2018.  He decided I was fit enough to undergo the open heart surgery.

The anaesthetist asked what exercise I did, so I told him about my regular walks in Morialta.  By November 2018, my Morialta walk took 3 hours 45 minutes instead of a mere 2 hours.  By then, I regularly walked around most of the Park boundaries and I always walked from the lowest part of Morialta to its highest part.

As I described my walk to the anaesthetist, I saw unmistakable concern on his face.  He lived very close to Morialta, he walked there regularly and he knew the precise route I was describing. 

I told the anaesthetist I wanted to do one more Sunday walk at Morialta before my operation.  His face took on an expression of horror. 

I was not to do any mountain climbing before I had my operation. 

I would not be able to have open heart surgery if I had a heart attack in Morialta and died. 

I promised not to do my big Morialta circuit on the coming Sunday before my hospital admission for my open heart surgery.

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Photo above is the view of Adelaide central business district from deep inside Morialta park.  It is very steep and the anaesthetist banned me from walking there before my Chain Saw Operation

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I was admitted to hospital for the Chain Saw Operation at noon on Monday 19 November 2018, the day before the operation was scheduled.  Nothing much happened that day apart from a full body shave.  I had my own room in the Cardiac Ward.

The anaesthetist arrived in the evening to ask me what I wanted him to do if the operation went to shit.  I told him that unless I had a reasonable chance of a normal life, he was required to let me die.  Margaret was visiting and I told him that if anything was in doubt, he had to do whatever Margaret told him to do.  Margaret knew exactly what I wanted.

I was not allowed to have breakfast the next day, Tuesday 20 November. 

I was steered in a wheelchair to the waiting area immediately outside the operating theatre.  I remember the anaesthetist paid me a visit and inserted various tubes into my arm.  That is when my reliable memories of being fully conscious cease. 

I have only jumbled memories for the time after the anaesthetist’s visit before the operation. 

My jumbled memories all relate to when I was having the Chain Saw Operation on my heart.

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I remember being in an alien place filled with multiple clanging noises. 

I remember being told I could stop having to be concerned any longer about the world in which my heart was about to collapse. 

I know I was given a clear choice of continuing to live or take a much easier path to somewhere else. 

I have no clear memory of who or what was offering me this easy way out, but I KNEW my continued life was completely in my own hands. 

I could either live or I could die. 

It was completely up to me. 

I definitely did not have to keep living unless I really wanted to.

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I am aware that in near death experience stories, a common theme is the presence of lights and an invitation to approach the lights. 

I have no memory of any lights. 

Either I was not shown any lights or (perhaps) my memory of any lights that were there, has been erased. 

I distinctly remember rejecting the offer of an easy way to end my suffering. 

I refused to abandon Margaret. 

I also felt I had more work that I should do and that I needed to do it in this specific lifetime.  I had no idea what the “work” was that I ought to do - and I still don’t. 

I definitely felt I must not die until I had done whatever it was, I was meant to do.

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It would have been so easy to accept the offer of no more suffering.

By Passes and the Repair Ring

My next “I am definitely awake” memory came in the Intensive Care Unit. 

A persistent voice kept saying “Mr Hankin, Mr Hankin”.

When I blinked and showed signs of waking from the anaesthetic stupor, the nurse at the side of my bed said “I want you to do the hardest thing you have ever done in your life”. 

I murmured something which she interpreted as me being awake and she told me her name.  I forgot her name almost immediately.  She then said she wanted me to sit up, swing my legs over the side of the bed, stand up and then sit down in the armchair that that could not have been any closer to the bed.  She told me it would be the hardest thing I had ever done in my life.

My totally beautiful nurse was correct.  Sitting up and moving to the chair was easily the hardest thing I had ever done.  Having reached the chair, I was allowed to return to my bed, completely exhausted and with zero physical strength.

My other memories of Intensive Care are patchy.  Tubes poked out of my body in multiple places and there was constant machinery noise as the machines kept me and the other patients, alive. 

The nights had no ends.  Once the sleeping pills wore off at 1:00 or 2:00 am, my sleep came to an end. 

From where I was propped on the bed, I could see a digital clock on the bottom of the screen of a monitor.  I regularly closed my eyes and kept them closed, willing myself into a meditative state, opening my eyes only after what seemed like many hours.  When I checked the time, about two minutes had passed.  I kept repeating the process.  When daylight started peeping into the room, I knew the endless night had finally gone to continue its taunting somewhere else.

My most persistent memory of the Intensive Care Unit is that every staff member who came near me was immensely kind.