I had good intentions, I really did, of getting my blog post written today. But much of yesterday was taken up with critique group issues and with seeing a cousin in the hospital. His back surgery was scheduled for 3:00 pm, but kept getting pushed back, finally to 5 pm. But around 6 the surgeon came in and said the hospital wasn’t ready and they would do the surgery today.

So we went back today. The surgery happened today from 7:30 to 10:30, and we stayed with his wife. At one point, I stood up to check the progress board. Took about 10 steps then felt woozy and my steps became plodding and irregular. Before I knew it I was on the floor. I never passed out, but couldn’t stand.

I guess, if that’s going to happen to you, it’s good for it to be at a hospital. The attendant for the waiting room called for nurses from the surgery area and three of them were by my side in less than a minute. People helped me to a chair and I felt fine. I figured it was a low blood sugar episode, and they brought me some orange juice and crackers. Actually, as soon as I got to the chair it was as if nothing had happened.

Fast forward to this afternoon and my cardio rehab session. My blood pressure before exercising was 113/60. I’m normally around 105 or 110/65. I alerted the nurse assigned to me about my morning incident so that she might watch me a little closer than normal. I did my exercises fine and felt as normal at the end. A different nurse took my bp and it was 87/48—too low to let me go. She came back in a few minutes and it was 82/42. They gave me some water and it was 78/39. More water, elevated feet. It went up to 87/48ish. I walked around and felt fine. More water, more sitting. Up to 89/60. I think they poured two more cups of water into me and some more rest, and it finally got up to 92/52, ok for me to go.

They insisted on walking me to my car, except I wasn’t going to my car. I was going to the hospital next door to see my cousin. So my nurse walked me there. I felt fine, all the time after exercising, even while they were getting low readings, and while visiting my cousin and his wife. I drove the 20 miles home with no problem.

All of which leads me to believe that this morning it might have been a low blood pressure event, not low blood sugar. I messaged my doctors about stopping the (very) low dose blood pressure med I’m on. No answer yet.

Maybe my exercise and weight loss are paying off. I’ve lost 15 pounds since June 7, about 10 of that coming in the last three weeks. I’ve been walking in the early morning, usually from 6:45 to 7:30-ish, covering 1.5 to 1.75 miles. I’ve done that almost every weekday and one Saturday. Plus the exercise at cardio rehab, and I’ve been getting a lot of steps and burning the calories. Eating better, too.

We’ll see what the doc says. Maybe I’ll be off that bp med by early next week.

Meanwhile, sorry once again that I didn’t get my post written for today. Will try again on Monday.

My post on Monday concerned the heart catheterization that I was scheduled to undergo the next day.  went off without a problem.

Since Lynda is still not driving much in fear of an a-fib attack (which are fewer, less intensive, and shorter than before her heart ablation last year), we arranged for rides from our church folks. A retired man who lives near us gave us the early morning, 6:15 a.m. ride to the hospital. A woman in our Life Group gave us a ride home in the afternoon.

I enjoyed meeting my cardiologist for the first time in the hospital room. I’d had a virtual appointment with him that turned into voice only when something went wrong with the video function of the Google app. Other appointments were with his nurse practitioner. He did a good job explaining everything beforehand. Other hospital staff did their jobs efficiently and were friendly.

The procedure happened on time. The results were somewhat unexpected. I expected them to find that one or more of my arteries were partly blocked and they would put a stent or two in, requiring me to stay overnight. Instead, they found one artery 50% blocked, but not restricting blood flow. They also found another artery that was torn in a couple of places. My cardiologist said both of these could be treated with medicine.

So they kept me there for a couple of hours of observation, so I could come out of some of the effects of anesthesia, and sent me off. Lynda contacted the lady who would give us a ride home, and she was there around 1:30 p.m. and we were home around 2. She also brought us supper, enough for two nights, and a very nice banana split pie for dessert. Guess it will take a while for my blood sugars to return to normal.

As soon as I could, I went to the sunroom to read, and promptly fell asleep. I must have been a couple hours in my chair, the window behind me opened a little and a delightful breeze soothing me. Then I got up, went into the living room to my reading chair with the book, and immediately fell asleep. I woke up around 6:15 p.m. Lynda had heated the food we were given. We had a nice supper and dessert.

We spent the evening watching The Curse of Oak Island on the History Channel, then read until it was bedtime. I realized my right shoulder was hurting and concluded I had pulled a muscle, probably getting in and out of the hospital bed while trying to keep the skimpy hospital gown covering me. I was afraid that it might keep me awake. It didn’t however. I slept well and long, not getting up until 7:45 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Mercy posted the results of the heart cath. I copied and sent them to my cardiologist friend from high school. He sent back a short note that he concurred with my cardiologist’s diagnosis. I think. He texted me in medical-speak, so it’s hard to known.

Wednesday (when I’m writing this) was somewhat of a normal day. I worked at the computer in the morning, adding the last 800 words to my work-in-progress and declaring the first draft DONE. Took the afternoon to read and nap. No physical exercise. No driving. No need to fix food. Truly normal routines won’t re-start until Saturday. Waiting on a call from the pharmacy to say my meds are available for pick-up.

So heart cath #2 is in the books. The last one was in 2001, when they found nothing abnormal. Maybe the next one won’t be for another 21 years. I’ll be 91 at that time.

Edited to add on Thursday: I’ve done a little more research, and have one more report from my cardiologist. The torn artery has a name: Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection, or SCAD. The causes are unknown, and the cure is unknown. It is NOT fixed by medicine as I understood it. The artery tends to heal itself. If it doesn’t, the cure is a stent or a bypass operation. Part of the reports were a number of links to Mayo Clinic info about SCAD.

Also, to better evaluate the condition of my abnormal aortic valve, the doc wants to do a trans-esophageal echocardiogram.  Say that fast five times. That is not scheduled. I’m also to be referred to a cardio-rehab program. Waiting on those.

So, I’m not sure when I’ll be back to normal, if ever. Let’s hope that artery heals itself.

I don’t think I’ve written before about the heart concerns I’ve had for the last ten months. It started last June 1, when we were driving back to Arkansas from Orlando FL. We stopped for the night at a hotel in Meridian, MS. After checking in and getting the luggage to the room—which involved a lot of steps but no heavy lifting, I took a drink of tap water, and almost immediately felt pains on my right side, in the shoulder, armpit, going down my arm, and on the right side of my neck and under my jaw. The pain started slowly, I think about 8:00 p.m., and expanded its territory slowly.

I know enough about heart attack symptoms to know this wasn’t good. But here I was in a strange city for the first time, not knowing where a hospital was. Lynda was very tired from the trip and was out like a light as soon as she got in bed to read. What should I do? The pain was obvious, and disconcerting. But I had no pain in my heart or on the left side. My heart wasn’t racing. I took my pulse as best I could and thought it was normal. I decided to not go to the ER, but to sit up and monitor it. I couldn’t find my low-dose aspirin (though I had it with me). I found my Aleve, which is aspirin-like, and took one, thinking it couldn’t hurt and it might help.

As I sat there at the small desk in the hotel room, reading, monitoring my pain, it didn’t seem to be getting worse. At times, it seemed to be lessening. Then it might get a little worse for a brief time then less again. This went on for two hours. I drank some water, got up and walked around in the room, and prayed a lot, and messaged our kids to let them know what was going on and to be praying. I probably should have gone to the ER as a precaution, but didn’t.

Around 10 p.m. I moved from the desk chair to an easy chair and read there. I found myself dosing and fought it. The pain wasn’t changing much, but with each cycle of lessening and intensifying, the peaks seemed to become less intense. At some point I dosed off. I woke up around midnight, and the pain was almost gone. I decided the danger had passed and went to bed. Lynda had slept through all of this. I fell right asleep, I think, waking up around 4 or 5 a.m. and having no pain. Not a bit of residual pain. When morning came, it was as if nothing had happened.

We continued our drive home with no further episode. Of course, I called my cardiologist right away. Why do I have a cardiologist? Well, some years ago I learned I have a genetically different (should I say defective?) aortic valve. It is constructed differently from the standard heart valve. It functions fine, but it’s not as it should be, not as it is in most people. Back in 2017, my doctor ordered a carbon scoring test, which showed some build-up on the valve. But he retired, and the follow-up was lost. My current PCP was aghast that this hadn’t been followed up on and referred me to a cardiologist back in 2020. That cardiologist had some tests done, all of which showed my heart was fine. The report was written in what I call “medical-speak”, but at one point it broke out into plain English, saying “Strong Heart Muscle”.

They re-ran the tests after my latest incident, found the heart still strong, but some parts of it not getting enough oxygen. It was a change from the 2020 tests. The cardiologist decided to do a catheterization, see if I have a mostly blocked artery and, if needed, put in a stent. That happens Tuesday, tomorrow, at the hospital. If they find no blockage, I’ll get out that day. If they put in a stent, I’ll have to stay overnight.

When I posted something about this on Facebook last week, my cardiologist friend from high school and college called me. He said this was nothing to worry about. He’d done lots of them in his career, even had one done on him. I read to him the reports in medical-speak, and he said yes, I would probably get a stent. Easy-peasy. He also said my heart was in better shape than his.

That will mean I’ll be on restricted diet and movements for a few days. No driving. No walking. I’ve actually had to cut back on my walking. When I walk uphill (and you can’t leave our house without walking uphill), I get the pains in my throat/neck. When I walk on level ground or downhill, the pains go away. So obviously something is wrong. I’ll miss two writers’ meetings because of that, one on-line tomorrow, and one in person on Thursday. I regret that, but that’s how it must be.

So that’s where I am. I wish I were 20 or 30 pounds lighter going into this, but I love food too much and have lacked the discipline I need to lose more. Maybe after this I’ll be more careful.

So, I’ll report back to you on Friday with how it went, earlier on Facebook. That’s assuming I’m not that one person out of a thousand for whom the procedure doesn’t go well. My cardiologist friend said not to worry about those chances, that in his long career he had only three of these not go the way intended. I said good, but I’d rather the odds were 1 in 10,000.

Oh wow, it’s Monday, and I didn’t have a blog post planned. Shame on me. It’s a holiday, and I just wasn’t thinking. I had my mind on something else. Today I had a 1:30 p.m. appointment for a heart stress test. This was a test postponed from January due to weather. Strange the hospital was open for routine appointments on a Federal holiday, but it was. I didn’t even think about it being a holiday when we rescheduled the appointment.

Then, about 10:30 a.m. this morning, they called me to ask if I could come in early, say right away. I suppose they had a cancellation and wanted to finish early. I thought about it for a few minutes, and decided to go. The type of tests took some time, and I was at the hospital three hours. After the tests were over, I went over to the lab to have blood drawn for the routine tests I have every quarter. Then, a stop at Five Guys for burgers and fries to take home.

Once home, I ate half of a burger, tried to read, and fell asleep on the living room floor. All this time, from when I was driving to the hospital to when I fell asleep on the floor, I knew I needed to have a blog post today. But here it is, late in the day, and I’m just now writing the post, a filler rather than a real post.

I’ll be back on Friday, hopefully with a proper post. That will be after two days of winter storms, if the current forecast holds.