I have all of those symptoms.
Some types of arrhythmia are harmless, but others can be deadly. If left untreated, an arrhythmia can lead to life-threatening complications such as heart failure, cardiac arrest, or stroke.
I was given a prescription for a pill that is supposed to address the arrhythmia. I was told that if the pill didn’t work within a few months they would use a shock treatment, i.e. zap my heart to stop it and when my heart restarted it hopefully go back to beating correctly, assuming it restarted.
One potential cause for arrhythmia is a blockage in a heart blood vessel, which the pills would not address. A blockage seems to be the cause as I write this, more on this later.
I wore a sensor to measure my heart beat for a while, which I recently put in the mail, and have yet to have recieved the results from.
At this time I also had a cardiac stress test. I lay on a table while they measured my heartbeat while pumping a drug into me to simulate the stress of running. At the time, I noted that the doctor nurses, and tech present seemed quite friendly and attentive, but they also seemed very concerned. They were so concerned that through their friendly smiles I felt like something was going on that was much worse than I’d thought, and it turned out I was correct.
And so we come to the recent cardiologist's appointment. He did another EKG and said that my cardiac arrhythmia had gotten worse, despite the pills. I had already read the results of the stress test online and knew it said, among other things, I was at risk of a severe heart attack, and he confirmed this. I told him about the medicos who did the stress test, and how I thought they were hiding something behind their friendly smiles, and yes, it turned out that as the drug was being administered, my heartbeat was doing strange things and my blood pressure crashed. Apparently they were worried I was about to have a heart attack as the test was being conducted.
The report of the test said that I was at imminent risk of a heart attack.
This explains why I get so tired when I’m walking around lately. A couple of days ago I had a middle school assignment and my classroom was about as far from the entrance as one could go and still be on campus, i.e. it was a long walk. I had to stop and either sit or lean against walls to go to and from the classroom. Since this was also one of those schools filled with students from many local elementary schools, many of whom have had me back to kindergarten, I had to do a lot of meet and greets as I walked to and fro across the plaza while trying to hide that I felt like fainting.
The second problem, which will not be addressed by this surgery, is an ongoing one called Aeortic Stenosis. This involves the heart valve going from the heart to the aeorta is becoming encrusted by calcium deposits. Think of an old kitchen sink faucet pipe that after decades has deposits that narrow the pipe and reduces the water flow. This is like tht with the addition that the valve does not close properly and there is some backwash. I’ve lost about 50-60% of my heart’s ability to pump blood due to the aortic stenosis. Even if the stent insertion is successful and the arrhythmia is fixed, this problem will remain.
The Kidney Stones are Still there
I’m told that I have multiple stones, and they are inside the kidney in positions where surgery will be necessary to remove them.
I had a stent put in my urethra to allow my kidneys to drain. After bloody peeing for several days, I went home.
It turns out that I only have one functional kidney. The doctor told me that normally when one kidney shuts down, as my stoned kidney had, the other takes up the slack, but it hadn’t, a sign it is not working. I was very close to requiring dialysis.
I left the hospital with the stones still in my kidney and an appointment several months later to visit a kidney specialist in Monterey as apparently, the hospital in Salinas doesn’t do kidney stone removal surgery. I finally got in to see the kidney doctor about two weeks ago. Still, it turned out my test results and CATscan from Salinas were lost and he wanted me to redo all the tests and scan. I’ve reone most of the tests, with another appointment upcoming to decide what to do surgically. He also said that I might have to go to Stanford University if the case turned out to be too complex for Monterey to do. The kidney doctor also said that I needed to be Cardio-Cleared. I told him that I had an upcoming appointment with my cardiologist as a follow-up to my heart condition.
If the cardiac surgery is successful, sometime in the next couple of months or less I will have to have surgery to remove the stones.
I will take a moment here to note how wrong it is that I’ve had to wait so long to get my kidney and heart issues addressed. If I were Bill Gates or Elon Musk, these situations would have been addressed long ago
So here’s what’s going to happen.
I will be taking my phone and my laptop to the hospital, as I have for the last few hospitalizations.
Next Wednesday morning, I’ll post another diary to let the community know I’m on my way to the hospital. Depending on how long I’m in the waiting room and allowed to keep my phone, I may make updates in the comments of that diary.
I’m going to take a taxi to the hospital in the early morning. I’ll get prepped for surgery and, depending on surgery room availability , i.e. emergency surgeries, etc, I’ll go in. The procedure they will do is to insert a cable into a vein in either my arm or my leg (preferably the arm, but he said tht may not be possible). They will thread it up to my heart and look around for blockages. I’ll be getting an x-ray dye so that they can see where the probe is as well as hopefully see where any blockages are.
if they find a blockage or blockages that they can address via either stent or balloon, they will do so. This should hopefully fix the arrhythmia prolem, and I’ll go home in a few days, and recover for a week or so at home. This would only address the one single problem, the cardiac arrhythmia, sith the aeortic stenosis heart valve problem remaining for a future procedure.
If they either can’t find anything, or they can’t fix the problem, they will just pull ut and send me home after a couple of days in hospital, and again, about a week to recover at home. Not finding something may sound good, but it would actually be bad in that without finding a blockage they can fix, the cause of my cardiac arrhythmia will remain unknown and untreated.
My cardiac surgeon says there’s a one in three-hundred chance that something could go wrong during the procedure and he will have to immediately actually saw me open and do open heart surgery. This could mean weeks in hospital and months of recovery at home. The one positive thing about doing open heart surgery is that they would also fix the aortic stenosis problem and put in a new artificial heart valve at the same time.
He also says that there is a one in a thousand chance that I would die during the surgery.
Preparation for the Surgery, and the Worst Case
As soon as I am feeling up to it, after I’m out of surgery, I’ll go online and post in the aforementioned diary how I’m doing. I expect that if i’m sawed open, I may not be unable to post for a few days. If I die, ouija boards will be necessary.
The most significant thing i am doing is setting up things for my critters while I’m gone. I’m going to put down a lot of food and watere for them so that they have about a week’s worth of food and water for the most likely scenario in which I’m home in a few days. If things go longer, I have a local friend who has taken care of my critters in the past to come by to feed and water them. If I never come home, I’m going to need someone or someones to help rehome them, and more on that later.
Is this REALLY a “Surgery”?
I had someone tell me “that’s not a surgery”. I think the intent was to diminish this as though this were no more serious than a pedicure.
My response is that my cardiogilist, who is actually doing this, calls it a surgery.
It’s a gaslighting effort I’ve experience before. For example,
I posted recently about the 30th anniversary of my colostomy from colon cancer. I got a response from someone in my life angrily and literally screaming at me
“it’s been 30 years and you are still talking about your colostomy” as though I were complaining about stubbing my toe 30 years ago and can’t get over such a minor trifle rather than expressing my unending and constant painful nightmare.
Now here’s where I ask you, my gentle readers, for your help:
There are several of you that I’ve actually spoken to on the phone. If one or more of you are willing to do so, I will give you the hospital code to call to find out my condition, in case I do not post my condition within a day. In case I am not able to post myself you can update the kos community for me in the comments of aforementioned diary I’ve posted.
If i am in the hospital for an extended period, like more than a couple of months, or worse, I’m never going home, I am asking for volunteers to take in my critters and either adopt them or help rehome them.
This actually something I’ve been thinking about for awhile. I am socially isolated with no local family, and nobody locally who visits me at home. I have long thought that if I died, it would be weeks, perhaps months, before anyone would check in on me.
Apophis is the cuddle king of the house
Ma’at the Ca’at with Fenris and Brunhilda in background
Fenris eats my face while Thoth snuggles
Dorcas is the dorkiest dog
Khonsu has had it with your nonsense...
Zorrita is fluffy
Finally, if you’ve read though all the above to this point, thank you.
I did not work at all this summer due to summer school cutbacks. Finding other financial income has been difficult due to the constant pain and exhaustion of my heart and kidney issues.
I have had few substitute teacher assignments and even that little bit has been difficult. I now face weeks, perhaps months of no income at all.
I have my monthly housing costs. PG&E has recently jacked up their prices quite a lot. I have been falling behind in my power PG&E bill and now owe about $500, and the bill has been running about $250 a month in summer (without using the heater). Last winter it was $350-$400 a month, so this winter I am facing the probability that I will just have to wrap up in sweaters and blankets at night and not use the heat. Note, this is WITH the disabled discount.
The one good thing is that I have no credit card debt, as I have not bought anything on credit in over seven years.
If you are in a position to help me out, either financially or via sending something from one of my Amazon lists, I ask for your help. The links to contribute or send things are below.
In particular, ongoing subscriptions via either Patreon, or KoFi would be appreciated. Subscriptions would not be considered charity, but rather ongoing support for my content creation. I keep hearing from so many how much they appreciate my writing, art, videos, and photography.
My critters can always use more pet food and supplies.
Thank you for your support.
#jtg
