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Poppy is generally a very healthy man. Well, he was until he had a heart attack in 1994 and had 4 bypasses. But the heart was damaged very little, thank to the ER doctor and the paramedics at our local hospital. The cardiologist was a different matter; he told me that Poppy was NOT having a heart attack and that since it was the Friday before Memorial Day and he was going out of town for the weekend, we could come in on Tuesday and he would check him out further. The paramedics, who Poppy worked with part time, insisted that I insist on taking him to Springfield, Mo to a larger hospital and having him check out immediately. I have always been grateful to those guys, they probably saved his life. He was in surgery within a hour after we arrived in Springfield. The cardiologist there said they had to push another patient’s surgery back to get him into the OR in time to save him. But since then, Poppy has been healthy. He only sees his cardiologist once a year and his general health has been excellent. That is until last month when he started having some back pain. It took me a month to finally get him to see his doctor and his appointment was today. Nothing too bad, a normal age related problem, arthritis. He was given some nsaids and muscle relaxers and told to come back in a couple of weeks to see if he would need physical therapy. The strange thing about this visit was his ex-ray. The nurse had Poppy remove his St. Christopher’s medal and chain and then she took an ex-ray of his chest. Well, when she looked at it with Poppy, they saw the strangest thing. There on the ex-ray, in the middle of his chest right where his breast bone had been cut in to for the bypass surgery, was a zipper. Now I figured it was staples or wire where they had put the bone back together, but it was an actual zipper, little pull and all!! The nurse called the doctor, who we have known for at least 26 years, in and showed him the film.
The doctor looked at it and asked, “Why would you have a zipper on you chest?”
Poppy said, “I didn’t have anything on my chest!”
The nurse said, “He didn’t have anything on his chest, I saw him!”
The doctor, in his most professional bedside manner, said, “You know, he’s just f@#$ing with you! There is no way, no reason he’d have a zipper inside his chest.”
Well, he ordered another ex-ray. The second one did not show the zipper, but it also didn’t rule out the possibility of the zipper being there.(the nurse thought she could just make it out on the second one.) Now, I have spend most of the afternoon and evening trying to make Poppy believe that there is no zipper in his chest. He keeps feeling his chest there. I’ve explained that there would be no reason for the doctors to put a zipper in his chest and no way it could have accidentally fallen into his chest during surgery. Of course, he saw the Jerry Seinfeld show where the Jr. Mint fell into the operating theater, so as far as Poppy is concerned, all things are possible. But if there was one, wouldn’t it make any further surgery in that area easier? They’d just have to pull the little pull thing and POP, there it’d all be. Think of the time it’d save, no sawing of the bone, no rewiring the bone back together. Since his bypass, Poppy has always said he was a member of the zipper club, but I always thought it was a figure of speech. I think I will go by the doctors office and have a look at the ex-ray. He, the nurse, and the doctor swear the ex-ray shows a perfect zipper. I have to see for myself.