Changing into my disposable gown.
This week I’ve been in hospital again for an angiogram, following on from my MRI I had back in the summer. I had the procedure on Friday, and I was told that it was primarily to investigate my arteries, but that if they found that they might need to insert stents, then they had the option to potentially do that at the same time.
Anyway, I had to be at Wythenshawe hospital for 7.30am – my mum had come up to stay for a couple of days because I wasn’t allowed to drive, and also needed someone to be at home with me for 24 hours after the procedure. A group of us were taken to a ‘day room’ where I had to change into a disposable top which gave them access to stick sensors on my body for an ECG, and I had a cannula inserted in my arm, before signing a consent form for them to proceed if they find anything.
I was a bit apprehensive about having an angiogram – basically you’re given a local anaesthetic, so are awake as they insert a tube into your arm or leg, and move it up towards the heart to put a dye in there and then use an x-ray machine to see live images of the arteries. At this point, they then decide whether to the proceed with angioplasty there and then – this is where they try to open up the arteries and insert a stent, or whether I’d need to then go on a waiting just for a heart bypass operation.
Everyone kept telling me that an angiogram is classed as a pretty routine operation, but I was a bit nervous about it because my dad had the same procedure back in 1996 and the doctor messed it up, going through the wall of the main artery, causing internal bleeding. He was then rushed into surgery and ended up having a quadruple bypass – so that whole situation was at the back of my mind going into it!