2007-05-12 - 9:30 p.m.
And so the roller coaster continues. All was well after we saw surgeon Thursday afternoon. He wasn't too concerned about anything other than that Alan really needed to work on his breathing exercises. Then at about 10:30pm we got a call from a doctor telling us to get to the ER immediately because the lab results had come back, showing that his potassium level was skyrocketing. This can cause the heart to go into arrhythmia. So we went, and were there until 1:30am. After all that, they just told him to stop taking the potassium and sent us home.
Then, Friday, everything seemed fine. The nurse came by to do a check up. Everything was fine.. After she left, he laid down to take a nap, and within 5 or 10 minutes he was screaming in pain. Sharp shooting pains in his chest, tightness. I called 911, the paramedics came. It seemed like hours for them to come, but in reality it was probably only about 3 minutes. A crew of 6 guys worked on him, then rushed him off in the aid car.
I had tried to stay calm while they were here. I had to hold it together to give them all the information they ask for. But after they left, I just started crying hysterically. The fire department guys told me to just chill out for a while, calm down for a while before I drove to the hospital. I went into the bedroom where they had been working on him. It was a mess of knocked over furniture, discarded tubes, plastic medical pieces, little bits of paper....stuff left over from all the things they were doing to stabilize him. And they had left behind a huge bag of their medical equipment, so I had to call 911 again and wait for them to come pick it up.
When I finally did get to the hospital, I didn't know what to expect. I had no idea what had just happend or what they were going to do to him. But when I walked into the room, the first thing he says to me is, "What took you so long to get here?!" He seemed fine. The doctors didn't seem too concerned about anything. They had run a bunch of tests but didn't find anything wrong. His cardiologist came in, and even she seemed Ok with the situation. The most they could tell us was that it was some sort of muscle spasm or some type of anomaly. Nobody was worried, so they sent us home. The pain was gone, he was fine.
Well, he was fine until later that night when we were wathcing TV...the Comedy Channel. He had been doing really well, doing his breathing excercises. It was still painful to take deep breaths, but he was doing much better. Then he started laughing, and that was just too much. He got up to get his heart pillow (a pillow specially designed for heart patients to hold while coughing or doing strenuous movements). He held on to the doorway to the kitchen for a moment....and I thought it was just because he was laughing and trying to steady himself. But then he just collapsed and crumpled to the floor....passed out. OMG. Fortunately, he came to rather quickly....and amazingly was fine. No pain or anything. He thinks he passed out because the action of laughing was so painful that he just stopped breathing, trying to stop the pain.
Now today, he seems better than ever. His breathing has been good, and he can finally talk normally. He can finally say a complete sentence without getting winded every other word. Our goal for today was to have no emergencies. And so far, so good. We even took a micro walk outside. One good day. Hopefully this is the beginning of all good days. We will see his nurse again on Monday, then his cardiologist on Tuesday, and both are available if we need them before then. And the paramedics are only a couple minutes away. So we're in good hands.
I know these have been long posts lately, but I need to write this all out. It helps. The doctors also tell us it's good to keep a detailed diary of all that goes on. So stay tuned. Hopefully my future updates will be updates of progress and good things. Many thanks to all of you who have been sending good thoughts our way.
comments??? (6 so far...) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~2007-05-09 - 7:01 p.m.
Candy anyone??
Well, at least it looks like candy. These are the pills it takes to keep the heart pumping after triple bypass surgery. And this is just the morning dose! The picture below might give you a better idea of just how many drugs are required. Let's see, there's one...two...three....FIFTEEN bottles of pills! Oy.
Anyway, the latest update is that Alan is finally home now....after 14 days in the hospital. But there is a possiblility that he will be going back tomorrow. He's having a lot of crunching and popping in his chest when he moves. This is possibly from that bad coughing experience that he had with the evil nurse (I posted about it a few posts ago) or it could be that no one was correcting him on the proper way to stabilize himself when coughing and getting in and out of bed. Or it could just be par for the course. We have an appointment tomorrow to get it checked out. Hopefully it's nothing. Hopefully we can just keep moving forward. We'll see. I'll update as soon as I know anything. In the mean time, enjoy this beautiful bouquet of flowers that one of his colleagues sent over. (I had to put them outside in the back yard because I went into serious sneezy allergy mode when they arrived. Oy...it's always something! But they sure were beautiful.)
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