Week 15, Day 3

          “Didn’t feel a thing,” I announce triumphantly to health proxy Bill Finkelstein as a nurse named Trish wheels the gurney into the room/suite Friday afternoon at Gates Vascular Institute. And for good reason. Nothing happened.

          Dr. William Morris, ready to install three stents in my heart arteries, had an emergency case in the morning and then gets called back to do more work on the patient in the afternoon. I lie on that gurney in the staging area for 90 minutes, saline solution dripping into the IV in my arm, before Trish comes along to say Dr. Morris is going to be much later than expected.

          The doc himself comes down to the room/suite shortly after 3 p.m. to apologize and relate that he has two in-patients to work on before me. That would get me into the operating room really late, he says, and he would not be at his best. He’ll see me first thing Monday morning. Well, second thing, after his assistant, the animated Amey Dziulko, reminds him that he has a left-and-right that morning that needs to come first.

          So everything is on hold for the weekend. Dr. Morris assures me that I would live until Monday. And it gives the blood thinning meds three more days to kick in.

          This turn of events leaves much to unravel early next week. Appointment with my sleep doctor Monday morning? Canceled. Bridge partners Monday and Tuesday? Notified. Sunday night sick day at The Buffalo News? Reinstated as a working day, but now I’ll be off Monday and Tuesday.

          All this after a day that seemed to start off well enough at 9 a.m., after a couple adjustments. When they assigned me to a dismal windowless inner room, Bill Finkelstein finagled us into another one of those room/suites with a view, like we had Wednesday. And then there were my hard-to-find veins, which resisted volunteering for IV duty until a second nurse came in and shifted from the right arm to the left. Will things fall in line as smoothly on the return visit at 7 a.m. Monday? Here’s hoping.