Just lately I’ve taken to slowing down. Not by choice.

It’s three weeks after my carpel tunnel #2 procedure, and two weeks after I had two units of blood at dialysis, to recover from the blood loss. So my HB should be pretty good and I should be jumping out of my skin.

But I can’t make it around the block. I walked 100 metres from the car to meet Max for coffee and I was a puffing, exhausted wreck. And my heart was beating like a base drum, echoing throughout my chest. It took about 10 minutes (and at least half my coffee) to recover. Maybe this is not just a haemoglobin problem.

Like any red-blooded man, I ignored it as soon as it went away.  Trouble is it kept coming back, from less and less exertion on my part.

I really hate going to hospital. I fight like a trout to stay away. But last night, sitting on the bed with my heart pounding from the mammoth effort of walking from the lounge room, Julie and I decided it would be best to go under my own insipid steam, before I was carried there by a van with flashing lights.

So around midnight, five days before Christmas, we walked into Austin Hospital ED, registered, and lined up for the Triage nurse. I think I’m having a problem with my heart are magic words that get you close to the front of the queue. Into a cubicle: blood tests (what else?), an ECG and, later a chest X-Ray.

By 5am I was admitted to the cardiac ward. My new nurse promptly connected me my new wireless companion for the duration, a five lead ECG monitor, as I sat on my bed.

It was isolation room. Not because my heart problems were infectious, but because I have VRE (Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci). It’s a bug that lives in my bowel that, like the name says isn’t at all fussed by our most potent antibiotic. It’s harmless in the bowel, but if it leaves home and takes up residence in other parts (of the body), it gets all nasty and very hard to kill.

Not that I’m alone. VRE is one of the less attractive and most common side effects of hanging around hospitals. It’s pretty common amongst us BigD-ers, since we have low immunity, are always gathering together, either in hospitals or units and sharing facilities. I caught it a few years ago on one of my previous visits.

But it’s not so common in cardiac wards and they work hard to isolate it. So here I am in this fairly bare isolation room, facing days of tests sprinkled with dialysis…

It’s now Christmas Eve. I’m an old hand on the ward. Three days ago I had an angiogram and found that I have a serious calcium blockage in my right coronary artery, where it joins the aorta. It needs to be drilled out and a stent inserted. The Christmas period is not a good time, so I will have the procedure in a couple of weeks. I am now pretty stable, with new meds and all should be well if I don’t exert myself (which I won’t).

I’m having dialysis today in my room (third time) and if my bloods are ok, I’ll be discharged today, in time for Christmas.

I have written many times that dialysis patients rarely die from their kidney problems. It is almost always from heart attacks, as the constant fluid overloads and general flood of loose calcium and other chemicals into the arteries eventually exhaust the heart and it stops working. And here I am now, living proof.

Luckily, despite dragging my feet, they have found my problem early, and once the stent is in place, things should get back to relative normality. I know now to take these warnings seriously and to stay vigilant for the next calcium problem.  One thing about BigD; it’s never boring.

I’ll let you know how it goes after Christmas.

Meanwhile, enjoy the time with your family and friends. I know I will.