Here I was at age 62, back in the hospital for my third go around with an arterial blockage. Three years ago I had suffered a heart attack while on an airplane returning from a business trip and had gone through this life-saving angioplasty procedure where a cardiologist implants a metal stent in the blocked artery to increase blood flow. The procedure includes inserting a thin wire, holding a balloon and stent, through an artery in your groin and up into your heart where the blockage is located. The surgeon can maneuver the contraption by looking at a monitor with a moving X-ray image of your heart and arteries. The balloon is inflated and the stent inserted which keeps the artery open and blood flowing. Quite magnificent technology.
This was the third time and I already knew the routine and was actually looking forward to part of it. Here's how everything unfolded.
I had been feeling bad for a week, and by Saturday morning, I started feeling those same symptoms, pain in the middle of my back, exhaustion, shortness of breath. When I told my wife she immediately demanded we head for the hospital. I didn't argue. I did not feel good at all.
When we arrived at the emergency room they immediately took me back to an exam room where they had me remove my shirt and hooked up a machine with several stickies and wires that confirmed I had a blockage, but not yet a heart attack. That was the good news. My cardiologist arrived several hours later and and scheduled the procedure for the next morning.
They admitted me and by 5:00 pm wheeled me to a room where the nurse instructed me to disrobe and put on the standard hospital gown with the opening to the rear. You know the routine!
Once I was completely naked I slipped my arms through the gown and my wife helped me tie the cords around my neck and one other one on the back. I got onto the bed and my wife covered me with a sheet and blanket. A middle-aged female orderly returned and I began the process of being hooked up to several monitors, having an IV stuck in my right arm, with strict instructions not to move that arm, and over the next several hours being visited by a couple of nurses who explained the familiar (to me) procedure for tomorrow, and the same older female orderly who brought me water and a urine bottle, with instructions I was to only use the bottle because they needed to measure my urine flow.
By 8:00 pm I talked my wife into going home, because she was tired, and I really didn't need for her to suffer along with me. I told her I would be fine. In the back of my mind, I also did not want her to be in the room when the orderly was prepping me for surgery later that night, because the shaving of my pubic hair by a female orderly had become one of the positives of these procedures.
Three years earlier, the first time I went through this, I was really ill and a 30-something female orderly shaved me while a male nurse was hooking me up to the monitors. Two years later, the second time I had a stent implanted, the nurse herself, an attractive 50-something Filipino, shaved me while a couple of young female candy stripers took my pulse while they "checked out the old man's equipment!" I almost lost control of myself that time and did feel my penis begin to thicken and swell, but I was able to keep from embarrassing myself with a room full of people.
Both of these first two procedures happened during the day with lots of people around, but now my male nurse explained that the orderly would be in later that night to prep me for the next morning's procedure. I realized I would probably be alone with the orderly, and I have to admit I was somewhat excited and looking forward to see how things would unfold.
Around 11:00 pm the night shift orderly knocked on my door and peeked in. I was surprised to see an attractive, heavy set middle aged black woman, dressed in green scrubs, with a bright smile which showed off her perfectly straight white teeth and full lips. She introduced herself as Ruby and explained that she would be returning later to prep me. She asked if there was anything she could do for me and I explained to her that I really needed to urinate, but the other orderly explained that I was not to use my right arm where the IV was attached. I said I didn't think I could hold the bottle and urinate with one hand "without spilling something."
Without so much as giving it a second thought she pulled on a pair of latex gloves, reached for the empty bottle and pulled back the blanket and lifted my gown. She told me to lean on my side toward her the held the mouth of the curved bottle close to my flacid four-inch penis as she lifted it and placed a few inches inside the wide opening of the bottle and informed me it was OK to "cut loose." We both sort of laughed as I relaxed my bladder and allowed it to empty into the bottle with a strong heavy stream.