Yesterday was a good day.

She's keeping me from falling down the ravine

Yesterday morning I woke up in a cabin on the mountain. I married the woman I love in front of the fire place. I spent the day with friends and had a great dinner with some of my favorite people. I had a great weekend.

I had the last of my transplant evaluation trips to Seattle last Wednesday (11/7). There was a lot to do, but we got it all done. Had a right heart cath, met one of the transplant surgeons, even managed to squeeze in an unplanned visit with my cardiologist there. They should be presenting my case this Thursday, so it's possible I'll make the wait list by the end of the week.

I got a call this morning from the office of my EP this morning. My ICD has been sending them signals that my heart rate has been irregular and elevated. "Not dangerously irregular," he said. That sure made me feel better.

Tonight my heart is racing and my fluid load is high. My hands won't stop shaking and I'm having trouble concentrating, making this entry a real chore. My options are to wait it out or go to the hospital, where they'll run a bunch of tests while I wait it out. So, I'll wait at least until I can tell if it's getting better or worse before heading to the emergency department. This is probably a result of not eating the way I should and over exerting myself the last couple of days.

Anyway, yesterday was a really great day.

Weight: 219.2, Symptoms: Fatigued, short of breath, light-headed, nausea, shaky, confused, and the skin on my hands seems to be changing color. Seriously, that's what I get to call my doctor about tomorrow.

 

I'm going to ride the damn bike again.

A lot has happened since my last post, so here goes.

Andrew lecturing me

For starters, the second trip to Seattle on Friday 10/19 was more encouraging than the first. I met with the infectious disease specialist who seemed perfectly competent and the nutritionist who might have been a little crazy, but was otherwise delightful. I met with the coordinator again to finish my required education on what to expect and had a couple more tests done. The traffic home was worse the second time.

My rhythm troubles worsened as sometime over that weekend I developed an atrial flutter. My heart was racing and my shortness of breath was so intense that I barely felt functional. It was a week before it was diagnosed, and having gone on for so long, they weren't able to correct it via cardioversion because a clot might have developed in my heart and could potentially cause a stroke. I underwent a procedure on 10/31 (spooky) to check for clots (none), and then was zapped back into rhythm.

Next week is going to be interesting; I'll be repeating the exercise stress test on

Brent: "Sit in the chair!"

Monday, I expect to perform much worse than I did in may, but it's one of those tests that my cardiologist at UW wants to repeat. Apparently I "don't look as sick as the numbers indicate", so I'm going through the whole course of invasive tests again. My next trip to Seattle will be on 11/7, when I will have multiple invasive tests. I'll also meet the transplant surgeon. Oh, and on Tuesday I start taking insulin.

While I'm on the topic, here's a list on conditions that are almost certainly a result of living with cardiomyopathy/CHF: Anemia, gout, diabetes, hypothyroidism, and I might as well throw in anxiety and depression. Good times.

Anyway, I have something to look forward to next week, something that makes all of this struggling worth it (see below). I'll try and update after the next Seattle trip.

PS If you follow me on facebook, I have a habit of saying 'brb, heart surgery' before every heart related procedure. I promise that if it's something more dramatic than sticking probes in there, I'll be sure to specify.

Weight: 215.8, Symptoms: All of the usual, but mostly just very, very tired.