Huffington Magazine Issue 15 | Page 66

Granta 111: Going Back Design by Michael Salu in collaboration with St Bride Printing Library Granta 112: Pakistan Artwork in collaboration with Islam Gull (Karachi Truck artist) Granta 113: Best of Young Spanish Language Novelists Design by Michael Salu Fiction HUFFINGTON 09.23.12 ology service. “So?” I said. “So he’s also got a history. Angioplasty about ten years ago, no definite history of MI. You can’t really read his EKG because he’s got a left bundle, no old strips so I don’t know if it’s new.” We were down to business. “So I rule him out.” “You rule him out. Ortho says they’ll follow with you.” “Lovely. And once I rule him out?” “Ortho says they’ll follow with you.” I said something unpleasant. The MAO understood. “Sucks, I know, but there you are.” And there I was, down in the ER on a Sunday afternoon, turning over the stack of papers that John Mongay had generated over his six hours in the ED. There was a sheaf of EKGs covered with bizarre ectopic beats, through which occasionally emerged a stretch of normal sinus rhythm, enough to see that there was, indeed, a left bundle branch block, and not much else. The heart has several bundles, cables in its internal wiring. When some disease process disrupts a bundle, the result is an EKG too distorted to answer