The Tell Tale Heart Tells All

"Spring is here. Why doesn't my heart go dancing?" asked Lorenz Hart, the poet of Broadway. It seems that my heart is dancing all too erratically these days -- in the style of Buddy Rich, Joe Morello and Olatunji. Drummers of passion and their wild, unconventional meter. No more I will ever underestimate that solid 4/4 beat, a la Ringo Starr -- it is so reassuring. Little did I know I would spend much of the winter racing in my own medical Iditarod. Traipsing through the snow behind a team of huskies was one of the faraway thoughts I entertained whilst recently sequestered in St. Francis Hospital for seven days. "We wondered why you kept shouting, 'Mush! Mush!' in your sleep," the overnight nurse chuckled. I could have been ordering breakfast. With non-fat milk, of course.
Seven days in the hospital! Gee whiz, I went in for a simple chest X-ray. They wouldn't let me leave. If I weren't for Cow Hollow's Dr. Harvey Caplan, I would not have been convinced to get that chest X-ray. Little did I know I was tickling the dragon's tail.
Little did I know that getting sick can be a full-time job.
"This is a big deal," announced the ER doc as they stripped me of my civilian clothes.
They call the condition atrial fibrulation -- an irregular heartbeat that for months I unwisely and erroneously attributed to flu, bronchitis etc. It caused some blood clots in the heart, fluid on the lung and serious difficulty in breathing. They considered stopping my heart electrically, then resetting it, but the blood clots will have to clear up first. Meanwhile I have to hope they'll stay where they are. "You are at an elevated risk for a stroke," a grave-looking doctor averred. I thought of FDR's last words: "I have a terrific headache." Later for the jumper cables.
"I got arrythmia, I got music. I got my gal. Who could ask for anything more?"
But, listen, I'm better. I'm breathing, but not up to max. I am making headway on the San Francisco hills again, slowly. I'm carrying the Mac around again. Even turning on the power occasionally and writing on it. I also take nine or ten pills a day and will likely do so for a long time to come. The beta-blockers tend to run me in slow motion and tether me to the ground. Plus a low-down-no-salt-no-fat-no-meat-no-cheese-no-alcohol-no-trans-fats-no-innards-no-outtards-no-marbelized-marvels-of-the-sirloin-set-no-hooves-no-snouts-no-foreskins-no-leafy-greens-no-nothing-no-nonsense diet. Some people actually choose this regimen, if you can believe that. Spinach and leafy green veggies are prohibited. No bok choy in Mudville. I even like Brussel sprouts, if you can believe that. But now I know they will kill me. I can still hear my mother's voice: "Eat your Brussel sprouts. They won't kill you." They will thicken my blood, if you can believe that. I must avoid the nefarious, blood-curdling Vitamin K. No more early morning grazing in Alta Plaza Park for me. "Everything that your parents said was good for you," observed Woody Allen, "turns out to be bad for you. Milk, red meat, college." Wait a minute. Did the doctor say, "No alcohol"? You sure? My friend, Dr. Dean Ornish, recommends fish oil. Lots of it. Roll out the barrels. Even OPEC is impressed. Fish oil is more expensive than that light, sweet crude we hear so much about these days. I wonder. If you poured fish oil into your car's engine, would the car automatically head to the beach? Come to think of it, some of my favorite people are sweet and crude. Tenderness means a lot to me these days. For years, Dr. Dean has asked me, "Bruce, how's your heart?" I don't think he was restricting the topic to atria and ventricles. The heart can be a palpitating yet persistent hunter. Occasionally it is also resilient.
"If I were a pessimist," intones one doctor, "I'd say you'll be on blood thinners and beta-blockers in perpetuity. If I were an optimist, I'd say indefinitely." He must be a comedy writer for Savonarola. Dr. Albert Lee, the heart specialist at St. Francis, brought his own brand of crepe to hang: "If you don't do what we say, it's a heart transplant or death for you." Cheery fellow. But Dr. Lee, like all the folks I met at St. Francis, is a compassionate, dedicated healer. He even came in on the weekends to check on me. He has to use tough language to get through this "patient from hell" -- as I was once described. I seem to wear denial and dismissiveness on the sleeve of my hospital gown.

Here I am, banging on the computer in the cafeteria of San Francisco General Hospital where the reviews of the kitchen are mixed but the clientele's performance remains engaging. There is a bedraggled woman going from table to table, hustling spare change. This, I imagine, has replaced what's left of MediCal. Some disaffected denizens here mutter angrily to themselves then explode into a volcanic stream of racist invective until security finally shows up and puts the kabosh on the melee of the minute. Then the participants are simply forgotten to death. Like everyone else, they just want to be heard. They crave attention. John Prine comes to mind: "A bowl of oatmeal tried to stare me down --- and won." Later, there's one noisy donnybrook by the first-floor elevators. I half expected a couple of game wardens to fire their tranquilizers darts at the two overheated perpetrators. All symptomatic, as the great Paddy Chayevsky wrote in The Hospital, of "the whole wounded madhouse of our times."
Back to the wizard of blood thinners at 10 a.m. to get the results of today's copious hemo drain. I ran into a pretty young doctor at the cash register who told me that for the patient, the Coumadin Clinic (purveyors of anti-coagulants) is "lots of work and requires plenty of vigilance." Some avocation for this meandering boulevardier who tends to measure life through the length of city blocks -- not milligrams.
I have been assigned an internist at yet another clinic in the Castro. It's all part of my new epidemiological travelogue throughout San Francisco. And the ennui that goes with the excursion. To die in Provence as did Dirk Bogarde sounds far more appealing. The doctor at the SFGH clinic maintained a less-than-sanguine tone the other day. Almost elegaic. Mournful. I managed to get there at 6:30 a.m. and oiled out in a breezy five-and-a-half hours. Yes, being sick has become a full-time job. And the hours are lousy. But the stakes are high. The night before, The Black Dog (Churchill's nickname for his life-long bouts of depression) deliriously kept up his restless and relentless pacing with his claws clattering across the hardwood floors. No matter. I don't have to go through this all alone. I'm in good hands. It's just a new adventure. Besides, all those great drummers who have been duty-bound to the off-beats and syncopation amid the unpredictable rhythm of life remind me there is a lot of listening and playing left to do.
Meanwhile I have decided to name my first-born daughter Lorazepam.

Bruce Bellingham is the author of "Bellingham by the Bay," published by Council Oak Books. He is currently writing a musical comedy based on the Physician's Desk Reference.