BACK TO THE FOREST PRIMEVAL

For over a year, the forest and I gazed at each other from afar. To be fair, I live in the forest, but a relatively civilized part of it. I am, however, the administrator of a little over seventy acres of original— not second-stand—native forest land in Patagonia that are adjacent to my own little piece of woodland. The thing is, for a time, I was in no shape for its rigors.

First, back in February of last year, it was my heart. An arrhythmia, which I’d been nursing on my own and with a little help from a homeopath for a decade, without it’s interfering much with my activities, suddenly went rogue. It gave way to a cardiac insufficiency that didn’t let me walk to my own gate without having to stand there panting for breath, let alone go hiking in the forest like I had for a couple of decades before that. That responsibility I handed over to my neighbor and assistant, Daniel, for the time being.

I went to a bright young cardiologist who first got my heart calmed down with drugs and then got me to submit to something called cardioversion. The process consists, in layman’s terms—and rather in the manner of a grandfather clock—of stopping the pendulum that’s ticking out of balance and restarting is at a steady rhythm. They do this with electricity. When I balked and asked if I couldn’t maybe just control it with drugs, the cardiologist told me that electric shock was safer and more effective than drugs...when it worked. And it usually worked, even in somebody like me who had simply been taking bouts of arrhythmia in stride for a decade.

So I eventually agreed. “You know how long you’ll be in the hospital?” the doc asked. I shook my head. “Two hours tops.”

The day of the procedure, I left Virginia, my wife, sitting on a bench in the waiting room and told her I’d see her in a couple of hours.

When the doctor ushered me into the Intensive Care Unit, he pointed to a half-dozen white-coated and color-coded-smocked people standing around an empty bed by the window with a view to the lake and mountains. “See all those people?” he asked. “They’re there for you.”

I almost turned tail and ran, but valor won out and I advanced on the bed with a view.

By the bed was an ominous-looking machine with cables attached to shackle-sized, upholstered alligator clips sprouting from it as well as an array of monitoring equipment attached to electrodes that were obviously going to be attached to me. I had catered to my natural shyness and penchant for dignity by taking the precaution of bringing along some pajama bottoms to wear during the procedure. The jolly nurse who was getting me set up pointed to the garment and said, “Uh, those are going to have to come off.”

“Why?” I asked defiantly.

She smiled and said, “Because with the electricity, let’s just say it’s not convenient for you to be wearing them.”

I suddenly had an electric-chair image of the current surging through my body and my pants bursting into flames. Again, I was tempted to make a run for it, but I was already wired up to the point that escape would have proven unwieldy. So I submitted.

I turned to humor to help mitigate my panic. Turning to the cardiologist I pointed to the machine by my bed and said, “So was this designed by the Coordinación Federal?”

“Say again?” he said with a quizzical look on his face, and I realized my error. Forty-odd years earlier during the era of military rule in Argentina, the Coordinación Federal had been the nexus between Army and Federal Police counterterrorism operations, and as such was often involved in numerous clandestine kidnappings and torture, the preferred method for which was electric shock. But my doctor had either been a toddler back then, or perhaps just a glint in his daddy’s eye and an enigmatic smile on his momma’s lips.

“Never mind,” I said with a nervous laugh.

Meanwhile, a pretty young hematologist was putting an IV in my arm while the jolly nurse was attaching electrodes to my chest and head. My doctor’s colleague was snapping the shackle-like alligator clips onto my ankles.

Again I tried a bit of humor. “So, this thing looks a little like those machines they use to charge up your car battery,” I said with a laugh.

This time both cardiologists laughed with me, glanced at each other, and then one of them said, “That’s exactly what it’s like!”

I’m thinking, “These people are nuts! Get me the hell outa here!”

But just then a big guy with curly red hair and a gentle smile comes up and says, “Hi, I’m the anesthetist. If you’re ready, I’m going to put this mask on you so you’ll be able to breathe easier, and then we’ll get started.”

He puts the mask on me and injects something into my IV. I want to tell him the mask is too tight. I also want to tell them all not to start the procedure until I’m fully under because I have...uh...a high...um...a high...resistance...to...anesthe...anes...oh, hell, I’m going to sleep.

Suddenly, I snap wide awake. My immediate thought is that I feel great! The jolly nurse stops by just then and says, “Oh, you’re back! How do you feel?”
“Great,” I say, “When can I get out of here?” Then I try to sit up straight and am stopped by a pulled muscle in my groin.

“Feeling a little dizzy?” she asks.

“No. Just like I’ve been working out all day. And what’s this?” I ask daubing with my fingers at something greasy on my chest.

“Just a little ointment,” she says.

“Ointment?”

She ignores me and goes to fetch the doctor. When she does, I take and end of the sheet and start trying to wipe the ointment off, because I want to get dressed and get out of here as soon as possible. It’s only then that I realize I’ve got burns on my chest. They start to sting when I begin wiping off the ointment.

Just then the anesthetist drops by, gives me a look somewhere between concerned and quizzical and asks, “How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Never better,” I say. “When can I get out of here?”

He holds up a staying hand that seems to say, hold your horses, then he says, “I’ll go get the cardiologist.”

My cardiologist’s colleague shows up then and says, “Well! Good to see you awake and alert! How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Great! Why’s everybody keep asking me that? I’m fine, when can I leave?” Now, he also gestures for me to slow down and says my cardiologist will be in to release me soon. “Just rest easy there in the meantime, okay?”

I have no idea what time it is. I figure things must have gone swimmingly, because it seems to me like next to no time has passed since they put me under. My watch is in the pocket of my jeans and my clothes have been put away for safe-keeping in some unknown place. When the jolly nurse shows up again to take notes from the monitors, I ask her what time it is. She says it’s nearly noon and I’ve been here the better part of four hours.

Just then, my cardiologist arrives. “Doc,” I say, “could you please have somebody go tell Virginia I’m fine. You told me I’d only be here a couple of hours and that’s what I told her. She must be worried sick!”

“How do you feel?” he asks.

“I feel great except for these burns and a few pulled muscles.” I look at him like, what the hell’s that all about, but he ignores me. “When can I get out of here?” He checks my vital signs and says he’ll get me signed out right away, but says that, for the moment I should just take it easy.

He leaves, comes back leading Virginia, and leaves again.

“What happened?” she wants to know. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I feel great. I want to get out of here.”

She wants to drive me home once the doctor signs me out, but I insist on driving myself and getting some breakfast before we leave town. I feel great, I say, stimulated and arrhythmia-free. And I’m starved!

The doc says he wants to see me in a few days and I go.

“So how are you feeling?” he asks.

“Great!” I say. “I’m back to hiking a few kilometers and feel good doing it.”

“I ask because you gave us some trouble.”

“What do you mean, trouble?”

“We hit you with the usual voltage and your heart didn’t respond. Then we hit you with the maximum, and you still didn’t respond. Finally, my colleague and I got you turned on your side and got one paddle on your back and another one on the front and hit you with everything, and that’s when it finally worked.”

I walked out of the clinic feeling like I had a new lease on life and that a lot of things that had seemed of monumental concern the day before no longer were.

(To be continued)