Monday, June 25, 2007

Don't Worry, Be Happy

The other day I mentioned that I once woke up in the middle of a medical procedure on my heart. It may have sounded worse than it was. This wasn't open heart surgery or anything like that. It was a procedure called ablation. (I think I spelled that right)

Anyway the deal was my heart would suddenly start racing. One one visit to the ER they clocked it at 278 beat per minute. Better than four a second. Over time they finally diagnosed me with something called Wolfe-Parkinson-White and scheduled me for this procedure where they went up the artery, or was it vein, in my groin and used a laser to burn some fibers in my heart which basically were causing a short circuit.

That said it does hurt like hell to wake while someone is scorching your heart. Like most everything in my life this story does have an absurd twist.

I'm a hairy guy. Besides the chin I have a good bit of fuzz elsewhere. Therefore they had to shave to round patches on my chest to place some kind of monitoring device.

After I got home from the hospital I thought it would be a good idea (don't ask me why) to shave a large arc across my stomach that dipped down below my belly button. In other words I created a happy face on the trunk of my body. I did this to show my wife, to get a chuckle from a select group of friends.

I assumed my belly and chest hair would grow rather rapidly like my beard and like the head on my hair. Here's a lesson. Never assume. Belly and chest hair grows extremely slow.

Several months later I return to the doctor for a check up. The nurse tells me to take off my shirt and hop up on the table.She takes one look at my artwork and in a flat deadpan voice says, "Oh, that's cute."

I'd forgotten about this until a friend reminded me the other day. Thought y'all might find it humorous.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Travis, I am glad you could write something humourous today. and I laughed just as hard today as I did the other day when you told me this.

Still laughing as a matter of fact.

Yours,

Cicily

Monnik said...

That's funny... I'm surprised the nurse didn't get more amusement out of that - I'd have cracked up if I saw something like that!

MommaMonkey said...

Well, where are the pics? You can't tell a story like that, and not have at least ONE picture to post!

Travis Erwin said...

I think the nurse was in the midst of a bad day,a nd sorry there are no pictures to substantiate my stupidity and after thirtten years or so the hair has finally grown. back.

Hilary said...

Well that was my morning chuckle. :)

Unknown said...

HOW did I miss this story? That is so freaking funny! I would have died laughing if I were in there.

But that being said; damn, I hate that you woke up! What did they do when you woke up? Knock you out? WHAT!!!!!