Tomorrow, Wednesday, Stanley goes in for his angiogram, which is I guess officially called “cardiac catherization.” Angiogram sounds so much less scary. We’ve been assured by lots of people it’s a routine procedure—but it’s new for us. I hope the worst part is having to get up so early to get there since we are so far out of the “morning people” camp it’s not even funny.
Mainly we would like to know what’s what and find out when Stanley can get his valve replaced—the hardest part is trying to plan the next couple of months. As far as he’s concerned, the sooner the better. It’s frustrating because we have interesting and exciting stuff we’re working on and will start working on.
I don’t know all the details yet, but I think Stanley will only be in the hospital for three days or so, then it will take him three to six weeks for healing from the surgery. But at this point it’s all speculation—I hate not having the details down but have to just be patient until we hear what the doctor and the surgeon have to say.
Based on what I remember of my Dad’s bypass surgery, I will be not working for about a week—but then, I may escape into it. Maybe the hospital has a wireless Internet connection ...
Stanley is pretty strong, so I think it will all go really well for him. He says he doesn’t want the mechanical valve, but a tissue valve. I haven’t read much about it yet—I’m kind of pushing it aside until I need to deal with it, trying to get stuff done enough so that when it’s time, I can focus on it without worrying about tending the home fire. (Yes, I am majorly freaked out about this all.)
When Stanley has healed from his valve job, we plan to take our honeymoon. Just three or four days down in Washington, DC, when the weather has warmed up and spring has sprung, I hope. Stanley has never been there and I love it there. He wants to take in at least some of the Smithsonian and I want to see the new WWII memorial and go back to the National Archives again (and re-read the Constitution before the Bushies burn it or something) and take Stanley to see The Wall and, my favorite place there, the Lincoln Memorial. I don’t know if we’ll drive down there or take the Acela. But I do know I looking forward to planning it all out—I want it to be great for Stanley.
An aside:
Stanley ordered me a Snow Fox snow thrower and it arrived last Thursday. (He said, “Your wedding present has arrived.” Helene thinks it’s funny that I got a stove for Christmas and a snow blower for my wedding—but I’m very pleased with these not-very-romantic gifts!) We tested it out and it seems like it will do the job quite nicely. Now I’m ready for the next load of snow dumped on us—looking forward to it, even, in a masochistic kind of way. What I secretly believe, though, in my heart of hearts, is now that I have something to help me deal with the snow, I won’t need it at all. I know it’s a silly superstition, especially in New England, but there ya go ... we did notice that we have to be careful on the gravel portion of our driveway since it marks up the blade; I will just have to remember to raise it up on that part.
I have several things I need to work on over the next couple of days, all stuff that I like to do. Just having a little trouble deciding which to tackle first. Guess I will do the stats first, since that’s the least favorite ... off to work w/ me ...
Stanley went in for his cardiac catheterization today. Dr. David Lomnitz, Stanley’s cardiologist, found significant blockage in one artery. So, in addition to getting his aortic valve replaced, the doctor is recommending that Stanley undergo bypass surgery. At the same time.
Friday afternoon, Stanley goes in for a MRA, which is an MRI for the blood vessels, and will provide a detailed view of what’s going on. Then, next Wednesday (Feb. 9th), we go see Dr. M. Clive Robinson, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Bridgeport Hospital, who will explain everything to us and outline Stanley’s options.
Dr. Lomnitz suggests that Stanley get the valve job/bypass done within a couple of weeks. Stanley isn’t too happy about this—says he has stuff to do. I said, “Yeah, you have to get better.”
What was interesting today was seeing what they used to close up the hole they punched in Stanley’s femoral artery: an Angio-Seal, which kind of looks like a molly bolt—sinks the anchor end into the artery, where it opens up and flattens against the artery wall, holding a sponge against the hole. The anchor is made of some kind of a bio-absorbable stuff that dissolves when it’s supposed to, and the sponge is made out of collagen, which also dissolves eventually. Beats having to lie there with a weight on the artery for a few hours, or having some nurse have to put pressure on it until the hole closes up.
The recovery nurse, Anne, was quite nice. Stanley liked the other nurses who attended him during the procedure. Whatever sedative they gave him didn’t make him loopy. Or mellow, for that matter—he was really annoyed by it all, acted much like his cat does when I scoop him out of the laundry basket of warm clean clothes.
I’m in kind of a state of shock about the blockage. Although I guess I half expected it as Stanley’s father had a bypass when he was in his fifties.
Well, yesterday Stanley went in for his MRA, which is an MRI on the arteries. Or something like that. Took 40 minutes! He said the hardest part was not being able to move or cough—and that the worst part was listening to a Stamford-area oldies radio station on really crappy headphones. The results are being sent to his cardiologist on Tuesday. Stanley says the MRI was ordered to get a definitive diagnosis of whether or not he has a blockage. Hmm. I thought the doc said he wanted the MRA to get a good map of what’s going on. At any rate, we’ve tapped into our network to find out the consensus on the surgeon and on the cardio unit at Bridgeport Hospital, and the word coming back is all good, particularly about the surgeon. Much to my relief.
Maureen recommended that we read No More Knife Guys in AARP Magazine, which we did, quite carefully. In a nutshell, the article talks about how American cardiologists are quick to recommend bypass surgery as a first resort, without trying other courses of treatment first such as diet and exercise and medicine. I wish we had known about Stanley’s valve stenosis a year ago, when replacing the valve wasn’t so urgent. Then we would have learned of the blockage (or, alleged blockage, as Stanley seems to hope for) in plenty of time to try the lifestyle change/medicine approach to see if the bypass surgery could be avoided. As it is now, the valve job is urgent and maybe the risk of not doing the bypass and trying the lifestyle/medicine approach is greater than just going ahead with the bypass. Because, if the non-surgical approach doesn’t work, he would need surgery again in a short time. There’s no way that would be a good thing, I think.
For me, and probably for Stanley as well, the hardest thing to deal with is the shock. Three weeks ago, Stanley was, we thought, perfectly healthy. Active, never smoked (though he grew up with smokers), hasn’t had a drink in nearly 30 years, eats whatever he wants and never gains weight, damn him ... to someone who will die if he doesn’t get fixed as soon as possible. Talk about your world turning upside-down.
We also found out that you just never know what’s going on. His overall cholesterol level is high, LDL is high—but not that high. But his HDL is very high (this is good), and his blood sugar is fine. Blood pressure is ok too. So I’m wondering where this blockage in the artery is coming from. He doesn’t know if he was tested for that, um, c-reactive protein (CRP), and he doesn’t know what his triglyceride level is. I suspect we will be finding this out fairly quickly. I’m just very curious about WHY the blockage happened and how we can avoid any more of them. (Yes, we’ve gone heart-healthy diet. He even tossed some Stew Leonard’s cookies ... !)
My brother Scott’s step-son, Chris, had a sudden, shocking thing happen to him that landed him in the hospital with tubes stuck into his chest. He collapsed at work with spontaneous pneumothorax, where his lung collapsed for no apparent reason. He’s tall and very skinny, and apparently this happens to tall very skinny guys. He was in the hospital about a week but fortunately his lung has reinflated and he should make a complete recovery. That was totally out of the blue.
On to other things ...
I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago. Amber, good friend and former colleague, had her baby on January 6th: Aiden Luis Otero. I think he’s a gorgeous baby (he has his daddy Lou’s dark hair!), one of very few newborn babies who doesn’t look like a wizened little monkey (c’mon, admit it—most newborns are funny looking!) I’m looking forward to meeting him.
Jamie sent me this picture of Kristine and Bailey more than a month ago—I love it. (Hey, Jamie, send more photos!)
Mom and Dad seem to be enjoying Panama City Beach—when I spoke to them a couple of days ago they said they are winning (slightly) more than losing at bingo. Dad promised to send more photos (let Mom take one of you, hey Dad!)—he sent this one of Mom during a break at bingo. He’s a pretty good photog, I think (he sent me a great one he took of Stanley at the Golden Anniversary party).
There, I feel better that I finally got these pics posted. Now to go do some more housework (which I’m enjoying in a weird kinda way. I feel less stressed when the house looks tidy. I don’t know why.)
Received a message today from Matt’s Mom that his platoon has made it to Kuwait! After a very long year, he’s on his way home at last. I am so happy for Matt’s Mom Diana and for Kristine! (Matt and Kris’s story, and pictures, can be found here.)
I’m reading Seven Steps to Stop a Heart Attack by Dr. Bob Arnot. It’s an excellent book at explaining what’s going on, what drugs are used and for what, how they work, what the different tests and procedures are, what to ask for if you wind up in the hospital suffering from a heart attack (besides making sure the ambulance crew knows to take you to an ER than can actually handle heart attacks—which our local hospital, Norwalk Hospital, cannot handle), and much more. Arnot recommends a few tests and points out the patterns of symptoms and signs to be on the lookout for that indicate you are at a high risk but that are often missed. The book is frightening—but I guess that’s a good thing because, otherwise, who would take it seriously? I got this book out of the library, but I’m going to buy it because I want to have it around for reference. I’m going to see if I can get the tests he recommended done (lipid panel, hsCRP, etc.) soon instead of waiting for my physical in April. Alice, who has good days and bad days but seems to be getting better, also thinks it was the massive amounts of Stew Leonard’s ice cream Stanley consumed that clogged up his artery.
Got a link to the beta of Google Maps and have been playing around with it some. The online maps are really nice, clear, easy to read. The driving directions are outlined clearly, though there are some weird blue lines that seem to go nowhere. The online maps themselves are quite nice.
However ... the font size is much too small when you print out driving directions. It would be impossible for most people to read this text while driving, particularly in low light. Also, it would be nice if the path was printed on the directions map—again, it’s much too hard to read the map printed out and not having the map makes it all the harder to use.
But there are some interesting features. If, for example, you want to find a restaurant nearby, there will be a way to find that. Right now, the search is in no way granular—I can search for restaurants in Norwalk, but if I try to search for restaurants using my street address, I get Joloff Restaurants [sic] in Brooklyn and a link to University of Pennsylvania’s African Studies Center directory of African restaurants located somewhere besides the continent of Africa (this is the real link, in case you’re interested). Hmm. I suspect Google Map is way not ready for prime time.
Tomorrow
In the afternoon, we go see the heart surgeon at Bridgeport Hospital to find out the deal with Stanley’s valve job/bypass. I have lots of questions and will write them all on a list tomorrow morning so I don’t forget to ask them. Starting with the basics: “Where is the blockage and how bad is it?” Didn’t hear anything from the cardiologist today about the MRA—what is the procedure with this, do we call him to find out the test results? I suspect this would be good for us to know before we see the surgeon. Stanley will call him in the morning to find out. And I also want to get Stanley’s blood test results so we have a baseline, so to speak. So much to do. What is so maddening is I’ll be working away on something, or reading, or watching tv, and then I start thinking about all this. I can’t focus on anything else very long.
Ack. Now to go finish off those screen shots for a project due to launch soon ... and speaking of Focus—our damned car is being recalled AGAIN. But that’s another story.
We like Dr. Robinson. He was straight with us, actually paid attention to what we had to say and ask. So we went ahead and scheduled the surgery for February 18, just a week from Friday. Dr. R. will be on duty that weekend, so he’ll be able to tend to Stanley.
Stanley is scheduled for an aortic valve replacement (he has a bicuspid aortic valve, which is congenital, and it’s finally giving up) and a coronary bypass. The bypass will be one of those where they connect stuff to the mammary artery rather than grafting in a vein or artery from the leg or arm.
The blockage (lower front part of the heart, whatever artery that is—we’re not sure) is 80%. Stanley’s cardiologist (David Lomnitz) was concerned that the aortic wall had thickened, so that’s what was checked when Stanley had an MRA (an MRI for the heart) last week. His score was 3.6 which, according to the doc, means it’s not too badly thickened (borderline).
Stanley is getting a tissue valve (vs. a mechanical valve)—Dr. Robinson also seemed to think this is the best choice because, he said, long-term prognosis for a mechanical heart isn’t that good considering all the warfarin S would have to take for the rest of his life. He is NOT getting the Ross procedure (Stanley’s attitude is if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it), which the surgeon agreed with.
Stanley is otherwise ridiculously healthy, so the prognosis is excellent. There is a 98% success rate (or, as Mr. Half-empty says, “2% croak on the table”) with a 90% chance there will be no complications. Stanley goes in for a bunch of pre-op tests etc. soon (we have to schedule this tomorrow). We don’t know yet how long he’ll be in hospital, maybe three or four days only if all goes well, then a month to six weeks to recover, and doing those lung exercises, walking, etc.
The risks of waiting to have the surgery later are too high—Stanley already passed out once (which Dr. R. said is called syncope) which is a key “get thee to a surgeon” symptom for aortic valve stenosis. Dr. Robinson said the prognosis gets worse if there is damage to the heart muscle—Stanley doesn’t have this problem yet, fortunately, so it’s best to get things fixed before he does.
Stanley seems to be looking forward to getting the surgery over with rather than being [completely] wigged out about it—except he’s annoyed he won’t be able to see Constantine when it opens. He swears he will be completely recovered three weeks after surgery. (One can hope ... )
I am the one who is really wigged out. It’s been such a shock—just over a month ago, Stanley was perfectly healthy, we thought, then we discover he has a life-threatening condition. We both have this sense of unreality about it all. I’m worried about the operation and won’t be unfreaked again until about a week after it happens and things seem to be ok. I know all the statistics and hear all the assurances and all that, but it doesn’t matter: I’m still scared. Really scared.
I also remember what Dad went through when he was recovering from his bypass surgery: the mood swings, the frustration and not getting better fast enough, the painful breathing exercises to prevent pneumonia, etc. But I know we’ll get through it. Stanley told me today that it’s been really bugging him, how quickly he’s been getting tired over the past year and not knowing why.
Well, now I know that we can plan to take our honeymoon in April—which is probably a great month to visit Washington, DC for three or four days. Something to really look forward to when things get rough—I can’t wait to take him to the Lincoln Memorial.
Now if I could just get it together enough to get my work done—I need to get my focus back. I’ll be in the middle of constructing a form and then I enter the Twilight Zone, compelled to google “aortic valve stenosis” yet again, like there is something new and miraculous that happened just five minutes ago, a magic bullet. Oh frell ...
Paul Krugman wrote an interesting op-ed column in today’s New York Times. In it he lays out how the Bushie proposed budget cuts will slam poor children and families while, at the same time, the rich will stand to reap even more money when two deduction limitations, put into place by Bush I, will be phased out. He goes on to write,
Until now, the administration has also been able to pretend that the budget deficit isn’t an important issue so the role of tax cuts in causing that deficit can be ignored. But Mr. Bush has at last conceded that the deficit is indeed a major problem.
Why shouldn’t the affluent, who have done so well from Mr. Bush’s policies, pay part of the price of dealing with that problem?
Here’s a comparison: the Bush budget proposal would cut domestic discretionary spending, adjusted for inflation, by 16 percent over the next five years. That would mean savage cuts in education, health care, veterans’ benefits and environmental protection. Yet these cuts would save only about $66 billion per year, about one-sixth of the budget deficit.
On the other side, a rollback of Mr. Bush’s cuts in tax rates for high-income brackets, on capital gains and on dividend income would yield more than $120 billion per year in extra revenue - eliminating almost a third of the budget deficit - yet have hardly any effect on middle-income families. (Estimates from the Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution show that such a rollback would cost families with incomes between $25,000 and $80,000 an average of $156.)
Why, then, shouldn’t a rollback of high-end tax cuts be on the table?
It’s pretty clear that the Bushies, are engaged in full-out class warfare. Heaven help you if you are a poor child in America, because you won’t get any help from the government or from any of the rich white men running America.
It’s heartening to see that the Democrats seem to be resurrecting what’s left of their spines by coming out strong against the Bushie massacre of Social Security. And maybe, with Dean at the helm, they’ll figure out once again what the Democratic Party stands for. Now it’s time for them to kick some ass on this budget proposal and came up with a plan that, at the very least, doesn’t take food and medicine away from babies and the poor.
One thing I’ve become even more acutely aware of is how dangerous it is in this country not to have health insurance. We do have health insurance, albeit with high deductibles, and it’s going to be painful for us to pay for what insurance doesn’t cover for Stanley’s surgery and testing. I can’t imagine what we would do if we were in the same circumstances, but without the minimal health insurance coverage that we have. The bill submitted by his cardiologist for the cardiac catheterization is for $6,200. That’s more than $2,000 per hour for this procedure, including the time Stanley spent in recovery. This amount of money, for this one test, would wipe out any family living on the edge, sending them into bankruptcy. And this is for ONE test dealing heart disease, the number one killer in our country, particularly of the poor.
Why don’t we have national health insurance? Why do people who work hard all their lives, who follow the rules and pay their taxes and contribute to society have to live in fear of ending up on the streets if illness strikes? We pay Oxford nearly $7,500 per year for our health insurance—we would gladly pay this and even more in taxes if it meant national health insurance.
I can’t gloat when the Bushies push something through that hurts the red-state bubbas and bubbettes who voted for him—yeah, they’re getting what they deserve (especially in Florida and Ohio). But it’s also hurting all of us, the immorality of abandoning the weak and the poor and the sick. What are we going to do about those 300,000 people left with nothing if the Bushies win this one?
They came this afternoon—I didn’t expect them. They are so beautiful, and I particularly like the vase, which is a beautiful shape and color. Stanley said he ordered them for me last week one morning while I was still asleep.
My valentine to Stanley was to reserve the hotel room for our honeymoon. We will go to Washington DC on April 23rd and stay until the following Tuesday. I was going to get train tickets as well, but decided we might want to drive down instead of taking the train. That’s far enough in time so that he’ll be fully recovered and, I think, it will be less crowded than around Easter time. It will be fun to plan it all out while he is healing.
I was thinking it would be fun to take the Acela down from Boston (we’ll be leaving Ginger and Twitch with Ben, in Natick), but was surpised at how expensive it is and it only saves one hour of train time. It would actually take us longer to train down from Boston than it would to drive!
Twitch was busy getting into the picture:
We’re trying hard to get as much done as we can before Friday. Yesterday we spent a few hours helping Helene pack up books and knickknacks, and today were able to take a van-load of it over. Her new apartment is really nice and I think she’ll just love it there. Starting tomorrow I need to work on tidying the upstairs—I just want things calm when I bring Stanley home from the hospital. After that, I’ll tackle the office, which really isn’t that bad except for Ginger’s shredded boxes and yogurt container littering the floor like confetti.
Stanley’s surgery is scheduled to begin at 7:30 am on Friday. He still seems to be ok with it all, still looking forward to feeling better after he heals, and having some time to catch up on some books and actually read them, vs. listening to them as he usually does. I am not doing as well. I’m ok most of the time, but have these moments of, well, terror would be a good way to describe it. And I’m uneasy while Stanley is out of my sight. I know the fear and the uneasiness are irrational, and I do trust Stanley enough not to push it, but still, I feel like Ginger before a thunderstorm. On Wednesday, Stanley gets all his pre-op tests done and on that day we will find out from the staff there exactly what and where and how long, etc.
Off for a Stew Leonard’s run ...
Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy on February 15, 1564, according to SpaceWeather.com.
The SpaceWeather entry links to The Galileo Project, a website on the Rice University server which has a pretty amazing amount of information collected about Galileo and his work and the society he lived in. The section on Christianity and the Inquisition is interesting.