Friday, January 20, 2006
The Five Week Doctor Visit
The trip to Dallas began with my having an upset tummy during the night and then we got to meet Miss Diarrhea in the morning. We got up at 5:30 and finally left at 6:20. Made it to the hospital without incident and had no problems all day.
First up was a chest x'ray to see how the fluid on the lungs was doing. Then it was on to the lab for a blood sample to check on the kidney and liver functions. A couple of my meds can interfer with either and this was the check. Last but not least was the appointment with the surgerical team and hopefully a release from them.
These doctors are so darn young. Anyway, the lungs are clear, the blood test verified the liver and kidney are doing fine and a look at my incessions confirmed that they are healing nicely with no complications. Everything that could go right was going right. And I got a refill on my pain meds and a refill in two weeks. Works for me. I probably wont need the refill but I will need to keep the meds for the next two weeks. My overnight sleeping is my main pain maker. If I could get better at sleeping, then the pain would go down. The other problem is the drive to and from the hospital. All that causes me to have chest pain. The good part of this is its two weeks till I go back. By then I will be in week seven and I should be over this. Time will tell.
We will be back to meet the cardiolgy team and go over my meds. Hopefully, that will be my last trip to Dallas.
I must confess that I was very apprehensive about going to Dallas and having surgery. I really felt that I would enter the hospital and not walk out of there. As it turns out, I probably got the best surgery available with the latest procedure. The flip side of this is I really had no other choice. My angina had reached a point that my activity level has down to nearly nothing. Shirley and I talked about this and we both felt that I was slowly dying daily. The more I did, the more angina I suffered. Taking a shower caused angina, turning over in bed caused angina, any exercise I did caused angina. And it was getting worse. While in the hospital, my heart rate raced to 120.
I feel very fortunate to have been given a second chance at having a life with quality and endurance. This is my second operation of this type. Back in 1990, I had a double bypass. This time it was a repair of that plus a third artery blockage. I will tell you that the first operation was a piece of cake. This time was no cake walk. The pain level this time is much higher and this will be my last operation to correct any blood flow in the heart.
Let me finish this with choices. We make them all our life and some have consequences. i smoked for 46 years. My choice. With this choice came a heart attack in 1985, the bypass in 1990, another heart attack in 1999 and this triple bypass in 2005. My other related problem was a near blockage of the carotid atreries in 2004 which required surgery. I had a minny stroke from that which affects my memory some. Again, its choices.
I have been given another chance to live with my choices and this time I have chosen to have a better, healther life. In the years I have been given I will be healther, more physically active and a better steward of my being.
First up was a chest x'ray to see how the fluid on the lungs was doing. Then it was on to the lab for a blood sample to check on the kidney and liver functions. A couple of my meds can interfer with either and this was the check. Last but not least was the appointment with the surgerical team and hopefully a release from them.
These doctors are so darn young. Anyway, the lungs are clear, the blood test verified the liver and kidney are doing fine and a look at my incessions confirmed that they are healing nicely with no complications. Everything that could go right was going right. And I got a refill on my pain meds and a refill in two weeks. Works for me. I probably wont need the refill but I will need to keep the meds for the next two weeks. My overnight sleeping is my main pain maker. If I could get better at sleeping, then the pain would go down. The other problem is the drive to and from the hospital. All that causes me to have chest pain. The good part of this is its two weeks till I go back. By then I will be in week seven and I should be over this. Time will tell.
We will be back to meet the cardiolgy team and go over my meds. Hopefully, that will be my last trip to Dallas.
I must confess that I was very apprehensive about going to Dallas and having surgery. I really felt that I would enter the hospital and not walk out of there. As it turns out, I probably got the best surgery available with the latest procedure. The flip side of this is I really had no other choice. My angina had reached a point that my activity level has down to nearly nothing. Shirley and I talked about this and we both felt that I was slowly dying daily. The more I did, the more angina I suffered. Taking a shower caused angina, turning over in bed caused angina, any exercise I did caused angina. And it was getting worse. While in the hospital, my heart rate raced to 120.
I feel very fortunate to have been given a second chance at having a life with quality and endurance. This is my second operation of this type. Back in 1990, I had a double bypass. This time it was a repair of that plus a third artery blockage. I will tell you that the first operation was a piece of cake. This time was no cake walk. The pain level this time is much higher and this will be my last operation to correct any blood flow in the heart.
Let me finish this with choices. We make them all our life and some have consequences. i smoked for 46 years. My choice. With this choice came a heart attack in 1985, the bypass in 1990, another heart attack in 1999 and this triple bypass in 2005. My other related problem was a near blockage of the carotid atreries in 2004 which required surgery. I had a minny stroke from that which affects my memory some. Again, its choices.
I have been given another chance to live with my choices and this time I have chosen to have a better, healther life. In the years I have been given I will be healther, more physically active and a better steward of my being.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Mid 4 week recovery update
This is an update of my recovery since the last posting. We are doing much better. In fact, I put on some jeans and loafers and went to towm. My first time out since I got out of the hospital. We went to Lowes to get a new extension cord end. The best we could do was a 20 amp, 120vac plug. Once we cut the old end off, it was shorting out and getting hot, we found we had 10/3 wires which is a 20 amp extension. Works for me. We are using the extension to run a heater off the camp power. We run a second heater off our coach 30 amp system. We can only run one heater on the coach system. Thus we run the second from the 20 amp camp power.
After that we went to Walmart for groceries. At both stores I rode the electric cart which was fun. I had to urge Shirley to put someething in my basket too. We ended up with about 20 items so we went through the express line. I refuse to use the self service as the store had to let a cashier go for each register in the self service line. We got some fish sticks, burretos and chicken nuggets for lunch. We needed something different.
And home we went. Fixed the extension cord with a new end. Now we got to get the car flashers fixed tomorrow and then find the 12 volt fuses so we can have lights in the shower and basin area. Seems we changed a bulb and sparks flew. There is more to this but we will have to fix it to find out what else is wrong. So stay tuned for this update. Oh yes, I got a home haircut and she did real good. She wants it longer and I want it shorter but she cut it like she wants it. It does look nice.
We are getting some of our repairs done slowely. We still have the water leak, leveling jack leak and now a fuse problem. The more I feel and get better, the sooner this stuff will get repaired. We will be moving soon so we better get the RV ready.
As for me, still need pain meds at bedtime and when I get up and at 6pm. Once in a while I need a pill at noon depending on what I do. I have gone 12 hours during the day but 9 hours is all I can do overnight. Way to painfull after I get up. We have a follow up appointment in Dallas friday and I really hope I am released for the surgerical team. This will put me back in Fort Worth and much closer to my Dr. IE, we are doing very well. Just need time to get all the healing completed. It will be 6 months before I can play golf as I have a 6 month period limitation on what I can lift, which is 6 pounds.
I'll give you another update after our friday appointment.
After that we went to Walmart for groceries. At both stores I rode the electric cart which was fun. I had to urge Shirley to put someething in my basket too. We ended up with about 20 items so we went through the express line. I refuse to use the self service as the store had to let a cashier go for each register in the self service line. We got some fish sticks, burretos and chicken nuggets for lunch. We needed something different.
And home we went. Fixed the extension cord with a new end. Now we got to get the car flashers fixed tomorrow and then find the 12 volt fuses so we can have lights in the shower and basin area. Seems we changed a bulb and sparks flew. There is more to this but we will have to fix it to find out what else is wrong. So stay tuned for this update. Oh yes, I got a home haircut and she did real good. She wants it longer and I want it shorter but she cut it like she wants it. It does look nice.
We are getting some of our repairs done slowely. We still have the water leak, leveling jack leak and now a fuse problem. The more I feel and get better, the sooner this stuff will get repaired. We will be moving soon so we better get the RV ready.
As for me, still need pain meds at bedtime and when I get up and at 6pm. Once in a while I need a pill at noon depending on what I do. I have gone 12 hours during the day but 9 hours is all I can do overnight. Way to painfull after I get up. We have a follow up appointment in Dallas friday and I really hope I am released for the surgerical team. This will put me back in Fort Worth and much closer to my Dr. IE, we are doing very well. Just need time to get all the healing completed. It will be 6 months before I can play golf as I have a 6 month period limitation on what I can lift, which is 6 pounds.
I'll give you another update after our friday appointment.
