Month: February 2025

Reprieve: St. James Medical Complex, Internal Medicine

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Inverted anatomical image of a heart in crisis, done in pastels.

Settling In

The new space to me, St. James Internal Medicine, was much more comfortable than Port of Spain General’s Obervation Ward, which in turn was more comfortable than Casualty.

There were more patients. I noted a few that were restrained, hinting at altered levels of consciousness. One gentleman, who saw me walking around when I first arrived, motioned me over so I went to say hi.

Having my attention, he motioned against a restraint while looking at it – the universal way of saying, “Untie me!”. I explained to him if I did that I would be tied down myself, and that wouldn’t do either of us any good. He nodded his understanding and smiled conspiratorially.

I’m glad we cleared that up.

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An Overloaded System: From Observation to Internal Medicine in Another Location

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An anatomical heart done in ink, vignetted by black ink with diagonal lines demonstrating stress.

Day 3

Waking up after my a decent night’s rest – thanks to that Venezuelan nurse and her sacrifice of the fan – I felt good. The lights were on and had probably just been turned on. The nurse was making rounds. I’d heard the tell-tale sound of the velcro of a blood pressure cuff. I sat on the edge of the bed and waited – she only had 3 more patients to get to me.

She was also distributing medications in those small paper cups that serve no other purpose.

She got to me and my blood pressure was down. I’d ‘scored’ much better than the previous days, and my blood pressure had dipped lower the day before but today was right about where a 20 year old’s blood pressure should be. It was 127/80.

I wasn’t feeling 20 years old. In the moment, I couldn’t pin down an age I felt. I didn’t even care about age. If you ask me when I’m not expecting it, I have to subtract the present year from my birth year if I want to be accurate otherwise I just guess. Birthdays made no sense to me. Counting revolutions I’ve been on the planet seemed pretty small considering the planet revolves before and after us.

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An Overloaded System – Port of Spain General Hospital (Observation, Day One)

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Day One, Observation, Day Two in Hospital

The night prior, I’d gotten to know a few of the people on the ward. One had part of his foot removed because of diabetes, another was there because of a kidney issue which he said was related to Covid-19, and he was here for dialysis and tests. He had been shuffled more than a pack of cards at a local bar, as he explained it.

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An Overloaded System: Port of Spain General Hospital (Casualty)

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After what I wrote as the Prequel, on Tuesday, the 4th of February, 2025, I had a friend drive me to Valley Medical in Diego Martin. I found myself quickly ushered to the back to see a doctor when I explained I was short of breath.

Valley Medical, Diego Martin

Within 30 minutes I had an ECG and blood drawn, and was sitting next to a doctor who explained to me that I was having a heart attack. This was the first time a Doctor said that to me, and it seemed surreal. I looked over the ECG, which he showed me, and intellectually I understood. Yup. This was a heart attack. I just still didn’t feel like I was having one.

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Prequel: The Self-Defeating Heart

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People had been telling me to slow down but were not putting in effort themselves, as if things would somehow get done themselves – and I, being who I am, hate waiting on other people on things I can do myself. What some might call stress, I call a period of contraction before relaxation, the systole before the diastole.

In other words, this is how I have viewed the world. Some things simply need to get done, and if they’re not getting done, someone has to do them and all too often I am the one who does them because while I feel others may be letting themselves off the hook, I cannot. It bothers me when things aren’t getting done. It stresses me when things aren’t getting done.

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