Goose and I have been quiet but it has been for a good reason. Last Friday after my annual physical at 10 AM, I was pretty happy. My blood sugar was at its best level since we moved here from the coast in February 2021. My blood pressure was 112/68 and I had lost a couple of pounds. I came back by the house and picked my wife, Glenda, for a trip to Winston-Salem. I neglected to have something to drink while home. Since I had been fasting that was a mistake. We decided on Culver’s for our meal because I want some good french fries since it is something we rarely have. I got my smashburger, order of extra crispy fries, and a Coke Zero which is also something I rarely have. After an enjoyable lunch we went across the street to Lidl to pick up a chicken to grill and a few other things. I had paid for the groceries, got Glenda in the car and was taking the cart back to the cart corral when I started feeling not so good. I stopped for a moment and rested by sitting on one of the concrete posts. Then I went back to the car put Glenda’s rolling walker in the back of the card and started sweating. It was a hot day, well into the eighties. I sat down in the driver seat and that is the last thing I remember until I woke up with Glenda pounding on me. I had passed out.
EMS was there shortly after I awoke. I was loaded into an ambulance and transported the short distance down Silas Creek Parkway to Novant’s Forsyth County Hospital. The only discomfort during the ride was them trying to start an IV on the bumpy road. They finally gave up.
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We spent the next six on seven hours in the Emergency Area while they ran tests. I was finally told that I didn’t have a heart attack but the enzyemes that show up prior to a heart attack were elevated. They suspect dehydration played a significant role in the event.
Wednesday afternoon, I was finally discharged after a battery of tests including a heart catherization and a transesophageal electrocardiogram (TEE). My heart rhythm came back on its own. “Heart catherization is a procedure where a thin, flexible tube (a catheter) is inserted into a blood vessel and guided to the heart to diagnose and/or treat heart conditions. The TEE is a type of echocardiogram (ultrasound of the heart) where a probe with a transducer is inserted through the mouth and down the esophagus to get clearer images of the heart structures, especially those at the back of the heart.” While both procedures sound scary, they are short and painless. They take probably 35 minutes for the two of the them if you ignore the 4:30 AM bath in some sort of special prep the night before each one. The nurse was careful to use warm water the first night. The next night it cold water which was no fun. I was also on Heparin drip with IV pole for three days. Getting on the drip is also no fun since they have test your blood ever six hours until they get it right. My hands look like purple pin cushions They eventually decided I didn’t need the Heparin.
What I do need is a new aortic heart valve since mine is calcified. They are proposing a “Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) which is a minimally invasive procedure that replaces a narrowed aortic valve with an artificial valve.” It’s an alternative to open-heart surgery. We have several doctor’s appointments in the next few weeks and the hope is that sometime late this month a TAVR procedure will happen. I will go in on a Tuesday morning (TAVR Tuesdays I am told) have the hour long procedure then spend a day being observed before being discharged.
I have been told that within a month, I will regain much of the energy and strenght that seems to have faded from my aging (76 year-old) body. In the spring of 2018, my total mileage for the previous 12 months 1,530 miles. The next three years, I averaged 1,100 miles. The last three years, I have only average 600 miles. On July 3, 2017, I walked 10.5 miles in one day. I managed only a few quarter miles of swimming last summer, compared to several the year before.
There are more than enough excuses, more deskwork and less time but also a problem with a sciatic nerve. I have a goal to lose thirty pounds this summer. I already have lost six pounds which I credit to hospital food.
All this makes you look at life a little differently. I was able to finish up an office project with my 10,000 cell spreadsheet and the nice GIS maps that I do this afternoon. By Sunday night I hope to finish my taxes or as I say tie up an important loose end.
I have walked well over five times what I did any day in the hospital. I cooked my own breakfast and cooked the salmon cakes for dinner – I did not partake of the gravy. Strangely the high blood sugar that I have been battling seems to relatively stable right now. I haven’t had Metaformin in a week so that is also a good sign. I think being in a hospital long term can really suck the life out of you. I feel blessed to be home with my wife and tabby cats.
I am very grateful for my wife who cared enough to pound on me and for a lady named Judy Hill, a stranger, who was there to give her support when no one else would. I am impressed with Novant’s heart team and have no concerns about letting them try to fix me. The good news is that my arteries had no plaque so with a new valve, I might get back to some serious walking. My son, Michael, and been a champ in stepping up to do whatever needed doing including retrieving our car after an Uber ride and bringing me clean clothes at the hospital.
My primary care physician and I had agreed on having my life long heart murmur examined this summer. I think that might be one thing that I can take off the summer’s list. A few residents at the hospital even got to hear it. I can consider myself lucky to have been where care was not far away.
I did meet a trump supporter technician in the hospital. My conclusion is that evenyone who works in the hospital works such long hours (12 hour shifts) that they have no time to dive deep into the news. It took me two days to find someone who had watched the NCAA basketball final.
My last thought is what if we took all the people doing billing and collections and retrained them to work in hospitals? What a wonderful start that would be on better healthcare with universal covervage. I was once told there are more billing people at Duke’s Medical Center than there are doctors. That seems wrong and from how stretched the nurses were during my hospital stay, I know they could use some help.
A final word, I have a high dedcutible Blue Cross Health supplement. It has worked well because I haven’t been sick. Any paid subscriptions that I get will be going right into a saving account to cover what I think will be a substantial deductible. It is no fun getting sick and living on a fixed income.
I can assure everyone that I will continue writing and perhaps providing some real insight into what it is like being a heart patient. With some luck, I can convince my younger daughter to plant three or four tomatoes for me. It would be a wonderful gift to be able to look after them this summer.
Fun fact, I have had two overnight stays in a hospital, this most recent one of five days and another one night stay for a liver biopsy. It was the same hospital fifty-six years apart. I still remember waking up from my liver biopsy and a cute candy-striper told me that I had mail. It was a letter from the draft board ordering me to report for pre-induction physical. The hospital was in the middle of a field then.
Goose by the way says that I should nap through it all.
Our technological infirmity 