UPDATE - Yet More Doctors, Yet More Drugs

Tuesday June 22, 2015                                                                                              Previous Post Link:
Charlottesville, Virginia                                                                                             Pocosin Cabin and Mission, Down in the Hollow

 

* For the update, see my comment following Erin’s.

 

Last night we left Winnona in the cool air of Big Meadows Campground and took Ruby down the mountain in order to be at the hospital at 7am this morning.  Today is the day for the Cardiac Catheterization to find out more details about the blockage seen in the stress-echo test David had done last Wednesday.  They must really have thought he had a significant problem  the way they made this such a much bigger deal than the one I had back in October.  They even told him to pack a bag to stay over night.

The procedure itself took very little time, but the getting ready and all the tests and forms and the time afterward when they are busy with everyone else and forget all about you, took forever.  6 hours actually.  Mine was more like two hours but then I went to what I refer to as the Friendly Hospital in town.  David went to the teaching hospital where everything takes longer and is more involved. 

As you can see in this picture, he was none too happy to find out that he has an 80% blockage and a 99% blockage in his left anterior descending artery.  Normally they would put stents in but his 99% block is in such an awkward place that they couldn’t do it.  Instead they tell him his heart has been compensating pretty well, I think to myself “not well enough to avoid angina on exertion”.  Then they  prescribe a nitrate, a beta blocker and a statin.

So now he’s taking all the myeloma drugs and supplements plus the three cardiac drugs.  He’s set for a follow up appointment with his cardiologist next week to discuss what to do about these findings.  Of course that appointment is on the same day that he sees his oncologist to go over the latest plan for the myeloma.

I really did think only people in very bad shape, in poor health previously and over the age of 80 could possibly be this sick and that none of them could carry on with their regular life the way David does.  He repeatedly says he feels fine.  

This cardiac thing is having yet another effect on the quality of life for him though.  First running out of oral myeloma treatments means he cannot travel freely and now he cannot hike freely.

That’s about all the bad news I can tolerate for one post.  The only good thing to come out of it was that he did not have to stay over night and we were able to come back up to Big Meadows.  He won’t know what any of this means until next week.   Everything always seems to be next week in his medical life.

Despite what’s going on in life at any time, even a dreary sky makes a beautiful sunset.