Murphy, you bastard.

A common saying amongst the more literate folk in the English speaking world is colloquially known as “Murphy’s Law“. That is to say:

Anything that can wrong, will go wrong.

And thus, as I entered the final week of my work before the start of my holiday and the reason behind this whole blog, you almost hear Mr. Murphy getting out of bed, performing his ablutions and generally getting ready for another day of hijinx. It started off, naturally enough, with me handing over my share of the workload to my team, and ended with me having a heart attack.

Now, before any of you do the whole “OMG” routine, and start posting facebook statuses reeking equally of sympathy and sly attempts to find out if you are in the Will, let me assure you that I am perfectly fine. It does not appear I actually have had a heart attack, at least not now. But the events of a few nights ago certainly seemed to indicate that I was doing just that. Before I explain further, I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank my wonderful children for their courage during that stressful couple of nights, given their mother was interstate and they had to cope with it as best they could, and I would also like to thank the family friends(you know who you are) who came to my aid, and went out of their way to make sure I was alright.

Not this sort of Hart Attack, but this one is undoubtedly way cooler.

So what the hell happened? Last Wednesday evening, I started having discomfort in my left shoulder, along with aches down my upper arm. I had not experienced this before, so I took myself down to the GP for a probe, in the best possible taste. It was there they took an ECG which they announced was abnormal, they immediately called an ambulance and took me to Frankston Hospital. I was able to arrange for them to be picked up by a neighbour, and be taken home. I was able to keep in constant contact with them (my oldest at 16 has the sort of calm reaction I would get from someone far older). In the hospital, they wired me up with more wires and jabbed things into me in a manner that would Albert Fish cringe.

My two blood results came back normal though, and they wanted to keep me overnight. Me, being me, told them to jam it in such places that they should be glad they were near a theatre room. I was ill-prepared for this, had no-one to be with my children overnight, and rather than make me frightened, it made me angry. How dare this problem cause me such distress. I had my kids at home alone, probably freaking out, and it was going to ruin a holiday I had planned for five years! So checked myself out, and went home, arriving in at about 2:3AM. The next morning, I was fine.

That evening, the pains returned. That was. for me, a sign that something was wrong. So the above mentioned family friend came to watch my kids, and I took the second ambulance ride in as many nights to the hospital. I was, at least this time, able to prepare for that overnight stay. So I got in there, and was wired up, stabbed, drained and generally used as an extra from The Island of Dr. Moreau. It was easier to cope with this time around as I could prepare for it, knowing my family was in safe hands.

Again, the blood results show nothing. The ECG showed nothing. I had not, in fact, had a heart attack or indeed anything worse than chronic flatulence. So I still had to wait until the morning until the cardiologist could come in and check the charts, and look at me over his glasses like I was just there for the free breakfast (which I didn’t get). He checked my shoulder, probed a few places. And they let me go home, with appointments for tests today. It seems likely that my usual anxieties and stresses built up enough that it caused all the muscles in that shoulder (which has an old injury) to tense to the point of pain, which apparently mimics one of the symptoms of a heart attack.

Today, I had the tests. More jabbing, and injection with radioactive dyes. And then… oh, Mary Mother of God…. they made me do things. Things no human should be subject to. Things, that if this world were a just and right thinking place, would be outlawed, and scrubbed from the collective conscience of the population. They made me… exercise. I had to go on this damned treadmill for about 10 minutes to get my heart rate up, and then get measured and recorded and so forth. It damned near killed me. Oh, the heart was fine, blood pressure was perfect, everything was great, but my legs….

I henceforth banish thee to the lowest layers of Hell, o contraption of Satan.

Finally, I was allowed to go free, after ripping off those accursed electrode things. I swear, the last time I lost this much body hair was probably during some overenthusiastic grooming experiment as a teenager. The important thing is that I made it out alive, my kids were OK and that my holiday has not been affected.

Oh, speaking of the holiday, I am on a jet plane in less than 24 hours. The next post you see will be done on the other side of world, or possibly in transit. I’ve not much to say about the archaeology here this time around. I expect the reality of this won’t hit me until I am there. But, dodgy ticker or no, I’m going to have myself a good time. You can guarantee that.

If I see Murphy even look my way, I’m going to go all Liam Neeson on him.