2007/06/28
My friend is well
He's home. Wobblier on his feet than he ought to be, but home nonetheless.
I said that the angiogram they did came up negative. They couldn't discharge him in the shape he was in, however, and the attacks were continuing. They scheduled a second angiogram, thinking that they might have missed something. That, too, showed nothing, so they performed an IVUS (intravascular ultrasound) procedure. A bit of Googling tells me it's quite expensive, which explains why they didn't do it in the first place.
They went in through his wrist and found the trouble spot, which was at a bend. Because of the difficult location, they had to confer on whether to use a stent or perform bypass surgery.
On the way to the neighbouring room to talk it over, one of the assistants snagged the tube going into his arm with her x-ray gown, jerking the wire. Everyone went "whups" but the heart monitor didn't blip so thought nothing of it.
They talked.
When they returned, they saw more than a pint of blood pooling under the table. The blanket under his wrist was soaked as well. The snagged wire tore the artery in his wrist, and he was bleeding heavily while they talked. One tourniquet later (yeah, a tourniquet) the bleeding stopped. But it was a complication that kept him in the hospital for another day so he could regain his strength.
The final decision was to balloon the site and then insert two stents (because of the bend).
I picked him up yesterday morning. It was a very happy day. Here's hoping things stay that way for a while.
I said that the angiogram they did came up negative. They couldn't discharge him in the shape he was in, however, and the attacks were continuing. They scheduled a second angiogram, thinking that they might have missed something. That, too, showed nothing, so they performed an IVUS (intravascular ultrasound) procedure. A bit of Googling tells me it's quite expensive, which explains why they didn't do it in the first place.
They went in through his wrist and found the trouble spot, which was at a bend. Because of the difficult location, they had to confer on whether to use a stent or perform bypass surgery.
On the way to the neighbouring room to talk it over, one of the assistants snagged the tube going into his arm with her x-ray gown, jerking the wire. Everyone went "whups" but the heart monitor didn't blip so thought nothing of it.
They talked.
When they returned, they saw more than a pint of blood pooling under the table. The blanket under his wrist was soaked as well. The snagged wire tore the artery in his wrist, and he was bleeding heavily while they talked. One tourniquet later (yeah, a tourniquet) the bleeding stopped. But it was a complication that kept him in the hospital for another day so he could regain his strength.
The final decision was to balloon the site and then insert two stents (because of the bend).
I picked him up yesterday morning. It was a very happy day. Here's hoping things stay that way for a while.
2007/06/21
Argh
I've dumped in the Sugar Shack enough lately that I figure everyone there needs a break. So I'll dump on you, instead.
It's amazing how much I've come to love Randy like a brother in the past three years. We've both gone from cautious and wary of getting close to "if you need anything, anything at all like, say, a kidney, just call." It's the only real-life friendship I've had since my highschool buddy passed away in 1990.
It's not that I have trouble finding people I have something in common with. The world's full of geeks. It's that I'm the world's harshest judge of character. I'd have snubbed Jesus as a drinking buddy if I'd known his plans in advance. "Oh, a martyr, huh? I hate those!" I hold my friends to impossibly high standards. It's totally unfair of course, because I seldom meet those same standards, but there you have it. Too many times have I ignored my first impressions and lowered my guard, only to regret it later. I'm very protective. I often say people are jerks, but I know that's a huge generalization and unfair to a lot of people. I just don't feel like putting in the time to sift through 100 jerks to find the one diamond in the rough. I've got a happy marriage and great kids. My life is full enough.
But then there's Randy. Somehow he slipped through the cracks in my wall and we connected well enough that I never treated him as unfairly as I do everyone else. He's got his flaws, just like me, and I find that I don't care. Just as long as we can spend some time together every few weeks, it's all good.
It's nice to have a friend.
...
On June 5th, he had a heart attack. The ambulance got to him fast enough that there was no actual damage to his heart. As a result, because there were several compelling reasons to think it was nothing more than an esophageal spasm and with no evidence to the contrary, that was their diagnosis. Painful, yes, but non-threatening. Within the next week he had two more minor episodes and figured it was just more of the same, so he went about his business.
On the 17th he collapsed on the floor at the grocery store. This time the ambulance wasn't so quick, and they found evidence of damage to his heart. He's been in the hospital ever since. Since then, he's had five more, three of which happened while wearing a nitro patch. They're not having any luck finding the cause. The angiogram showed nothing. Yet the attacks continue.
His heart is badly misfiring, and nobody can tell him why. The doctors are baffled. His wife and mother are freaked. Randy's scared. So am I.
I don't want to lose him.
If you're wondering why I haven't been around Worth so much, or why my jokes fall even flatter than normal when I am, now you know.
It's amazing how much I've come to love Randy like a brother in the past three years. We've both gone from cautious and wary of getting close to "if you need anything, anything at all like, say, a kidney, just call." It's the only real-life friendship I've had since my highschool buddy passed away in 1990.
It's not that I have trouble finding people I have something in common with. The world's full of geeks. It's that I'm the world's harshest judge of character. I'd have snubbed Jesus as a drinking buddy if I'd known his plans in advance. "Oh, a martyr, huh? I hate those!" I hold my friends to impossibly high standards. It's totally unfair of course, because I seldom meet those same standards, but there you have it. Too many times have I ignored my first impressions and lowered my guard, only to regret it later. I'm very protective. I often say people are jerks, but I know that's a huge generalization and unfair to a lot of people. I just don't feel like putting in the time to sift through 100 jerks to find the one diamond in the rough. I've got a happy marriage and great kids. My life is full enough.
But then there's Randy. Somehow he slipped through the cracks in my wall and we connected well enough that I never treated him as unfairly as I do everyone else. He's got his flaws, just like me, and I find that I don't care. Just as long as we can spend some time together every few weeks, it's all good.
It's nice to have a friend.
...
On June 5th, he had a heart attack. The ambulance got to him fast enough that there was no actual damage to his heart. As a result, because there were several compelling reasons to think it was nothing more than an esophageal spasm and with no evidence to the contrary, that was their diagnosis. Painful, yes, but non-threatening. Within the next week he had two more minor episodes and figured it was just more of the same, so he went about his business.
On the 17th he collapsed on the floor at the grocery store. This time the ambulance wasn't so quick, and they found evidence of damage to his heart. He's been in the hospital ever since. Since then, he's had five more, three of which happened while wearing a nitro patch. They're not having any luck finding the cause. The angiogram showed nothing. Yet the attacks continue.
His heart is badly misfiring, and nobody can tell him why. The doctors are baffled. His wife and mother are freaked. Randy's scared. So am I.
I don't want to lose him.
If you're wondering why I haven't been around Worth so much, or why my jokes fall even flatter than normal when I am, now you know.
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