I just got back from a fun weekend at the VA Medical Center. Because of the tumor on my leg, the oncologist orderd a CT scan of my torso a few months ago to make sure it hadn't metastasized and spread. Fortunately on that front, it hasn't. However, they did discover "... moderate to severe calcification of the coronary arteries."

So with that bit of fun news I set up an appointment on my own with the cardiology department to get the arteries "roto-rootered" (my term) before the treatment of the cancer begins. So, I go to the VAMC Friday for my cardiac cath procedure. What started out OK quickly became not so OK. During the procedure, they discovered that ALL 3 of my coronary arteries have bad blockage, with some being 100% blocked. They stopped there naturally. Then, when I had recovered enough from the sedation in recovery they dropped the bomb on me.

I have to have an open heart triple bypass. And pretty damn soon.

Well, fuck.

Next I'm admitted for the weekend so they could do some more tests and get the OR booked and setup at the VA. This won't be ready until Monday next week, and at first I was looking at a week long wait at the hospital for the procedure. While there over the weekend, they do some EKG studies, a sonogram of my carotid arteries, and an echo cardiogram of my heart functions.

Thankfully, those came out well enough that they let me come home today and return next Monday, as long as I don't exert myself. And I drove myself home this afternoon. And since I was there, the cardio team coordinated with the oncology team about the best way to do the treatments, and settled on the surgery next week, go home after 1 week +- n days to spend the next two months to get back to a normal level of function. Then we'll start talking about the treatment and get that started.

So, how was y'all's weekend?

McFortner
Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

Big, big oof.

I can only hope all goes according to plan, and the recovery curve is not too terrible. :/

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>So, how was y'all's weekend?

Well, last Sunday evening after Otakon, I ended up faceplanting into a lamppost base in DC, got a forehead laceration, and had to have 9 stitches put in. Fortunately no loss of consciousness or fractures, so they discharged me immediately, and now after a week I’ve gotten the stitches removed.

Which is nowhere near what you’re going through, and I hope it works out well for you.

—- Philip

	Philip J. Moyer Contributing Writer, Editor and Artist (and Moderator) -- Eyrie Productions, Unlimited CEO of MTS, High Poobah Of Artwork, and High Priest Of the Church Of Aerianne -- Magnetic Terrapin Studios "Insert Pithy Comment Here" Fandoms -- Fanart -- Fan Meta Discussions

Oh, -shit-!

All I've got is a kidney stone. Here's to hoping for the best for you. Stay strong.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

Yeah, having my gall bladder out(not over the weekend I hasten to add) was exceedingly not fun, but it wasn't THAT. So, unfortunately you win that particular competition.

Best wishes and crossed fingers and all of those things.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The
Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-
Covered Balls!"

Jesus feck dude.

Here’s pullin’ for ya, you get better, y’hear?

I got a call this morning from one of my Doctors at the VA letting me know they've hit a minor snag in their plans. The Atlanta VA Medical Center is still having work done due to one of a chain of problems caused by a "pipe break" last Thanksgiving. The OR walls are currently being worked on right because of this.

Hopefully, it will be back in operation (no pun intended) Tuesday, but there is no firm guarantee on that. But, according to the cardiothoracic surgeon, I'm going to be getting the bypass done the day the OR opens back up, no matter the date. While I have no idea what is wrong with the OR, I'm told that it wasn't due to damage to the ER. Maybe they are replacing pipes in the wall. All I know is that parts of cardiology were still closed due to work being done on them when I was there last week.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm in some other reality's sitcom, because things that happen to me are just too weird not to be part of some poorly written TV show.

McFortner
Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

I know the feeling!

My situation is nowhere near as serious, but since I first went to an urgent care place with kidney pain, I've had to wait a couple weeks to get a CT (for insurance pre-approval), wait a week to see my GP, wait another week to get an MRI to look at some sort of kidney lesion (thank you again insurance), wait two weeks to finally see a urologist so I can have this thing sonic blasted, because it's not going anywhere...

And that was supposed to be yesterday. Except I got the coof, and they pushed it out to the end of the month. I mean, they made the right call, I was not recovered by yesterday afternoon. Little tired of this, though, if I'm being honest.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

Well, it's a week later than the last update and I'm still waiting. Apparently, the water leak allowed for a fly problem in the OR. While officially not a large number are being sighted, it's still enough for them to do work on the ER to get rid of any that are there.

So right now the doctors are hoping for a Thursday or Monday date for the open heart. If they can't, the doctors, being Emory Medical College doctors and professors, are hoping to get the OK to move it to the Emory Hospital on the Emory University campus. Since Emory backs up to the VAMC, that's not that far away. The big fly in the ointment (no pun intended) is the VA bureaucracy. The VA is reluctant to do anything outside the VA if certain conditions aren't met if it's not considered "urgent care". So I'll have to wait and see what the VA decides in that case. One would think that needing open heart for multiple 90%+ cardiac blockages are urgent, but it is the government we're talking about here, and boxes have to be checked off or it's a no-go.

Stay tuned for the next exciting chapter of "As the Heart Beats".

McFortner
Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

Oof, and oof to the followups. I hope it starts to improve soon.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

While I found out today that they are gonna do my bypass Monday morning at the VA, I just a little while ago got another phone call.

My sister-in-law found my younger brother dead in the bathroom this evening from an apparent heart attack. She was so broken up I had to call my parents to let them know the news.

Today is my father's 79th birthday.

How many Nuns did I do evil things in a past life for all this shit to pop up in just one month. Multiple total to near total blockages in my heart, cancer in my leg, and now this. I just can't right now....

Hebrews 13:8

McFortner
Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

Holy shit!

I'm so sorry for your loss. And I know that sounds inadequate, but I have nothing more to offer. But we're here to listen and help you pull through as best we can.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

Shit that's terrible, I'm so sorry. Stay strong.

Fuck, man. That's awful. I'm so sorry.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Wow, I am terribly sorry to hear that. Best wishes to you and yours.

Jesus fuck. I’m so sorry, man.

Surgery was on Monday the 26th of August, and I just got home today. So the ticker is fixed for the time being. I'm now waiting for the followup exam to be scheduled for sometime in the next two to three weeks.

And trust me, TIA Gryph would not have enjoyed having open heart. It leaves you hurting for a long time and slow to recover from physically. Holy hell, they cut the sternum in 1/2 and spread the ribs apart just to get to the playing field. Then, after all the fun gameplay, they insert a couple of drainage tubes in you that makes it hurt like hell to breathe because of the length and location in your chest cavity. And then there's the whole physical activity restrictions that I'll be facing for the next two months (at least) such as no lifting my arms above my shoulders or behind my back, no carrying anything over 7 pounds (aprrox. 3.2 kg), and no driving or even riding in the front seat (airbags into healing sternum is a no-no).

Failure to follow any or all of those could result in you going back under the knife to break the sternum again and that sets you back a good bit. And I don't know about any of you, but a week or more long stay in ICU is NOT FUN. And let's not even go anywhere about the all clear liquid diet until your bowels decide to start expressing all that gas that got into your chest cavity and the food you get after that happens.

But, anyway, I'm back and healing pretty well. It's just that the pain meds makes you tired as fuck after taking them, with the bonus prize of constipated so you take stool softeners because straining in the bathroom while recovering can end up seeing you drop dead because the new connections in your heart weren't 100% permanent yet.

That just reminded me, time to go take some fun meds. Have fun!

McFortner
Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

Good to hear (as it were) from you! I've been wondering how things turned out.

>And trust me, TIA Gryph would not have enjoyed having open heart.

I don't doubt it. There's a reason he only requested 12 hours of "literary experience"... and I wouldn't want to attempt even that outside of a cyberpunk future with its suspiciously effective medical technology.

(Seriously, the state of the medical art is the least dystopian thing about Cyberpunk and similar properties. One of the first thing you do in CP2077, as a flat-broke young striver on the streets, is get your eyes replaced and it slows you down precisely not at all. But I feel like I've typed something like this rant once or twice already.)

>And I don't know about any of you, but a week or more long
>stay in ICU is NOT FUN.

I have to admit, I minded my overlong ICU stay a lot less than I did when they finally moved me to a room on a regular ward. Then again, my time in ICU was extended not because of my condition, but because it was the only bed in the hospital they could put me in for like... three days longer than they wanted to keep me there, so that may be part of it.

>But, anyway, I'm back and healing pretty well.

Good news. Hope it continues!

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

The worst part about SICU was the fact I kept getting woken up about every four hours to get medication and/or have blood taken. Last night was the first full night's sleep I've gotten in a good while.

McFortner
Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

Welcome back, hope healing goes okay. Sheesh.

> no lifting my arms above my shoulders

...of all the things, I kind of imagine that might also make brushing your teeth slightly awkward? Not that it's high up there on the list of Other Complications, but still.

I can brush my teeth OK, but anything beyond that or overextending washing and combing my hear is verboten right now.

McFortner
Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

I am in no way comparing what I'm going through with what you've had to deal with, but this:

>I can brush my teeth OK, but anything beyond that or overextending
>washing and combing my hear is verboten right now.

This is so fucking annoying. I'm right there with you. In my case it's bursitis in the right shoulder and left elbow, both of which are taking their own sweet damn time to subside (with intermittent flareups about every week or so), and it's not the big things causing me the most grief, it's the little things.

Like reaching for a glass of water and ow fuck ow why does THAT hurt ow, or having to get help with my orthopedic boot because I get screaming agony if I try to exert enough force to rip the velcro, or putting my goddamn eyedrops in because that requires lifting your arm above your head and that's a capital-N Nope right now.

--sofaspud
--I think my warranty expired and I've apparently been bad about maintenance

>I think my warranty expired and I've apparently been bad about
>maintenance

Boy howdy, I know that feeling. As I advance into my fifties, I reflect more and more often on how abundant the evidence is that we humans are really not designed to live this long.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Having just passed the big 4-0, I'm not looking forward to the continuing advancement of age. My kids "keep me young" in that I have to keep up with them, but at the same time they also inflict the bulk of my aches and ouches, so there's that.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

My condolences for having to go through all this, and I hope things get better as quick as they can!

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

Well, I kept forgetting to post an update to this, so here it is only a little late.

So, I came home from surgery relatively OK considering, but I started having problems with drainage coming from the surgery site. Three weeks later the doctors and I find out what it was. It was MRSA. So off to the Isolation Ward I go and the next day surgery for cleaning out the wound and antibiotics put directly into it and the site left open so they could keep an eye on the infection. Plus put more antibiotics in it daily, and a good round of mega-strong antibiotics by IV. The infection had gotten down to the sternum and was trying to get started in the bone, so they were pretty worried about me apparently. I didn't find out how worried until much later, and partially by reading between the lines of what they said during this stay.

Anyway, back to the action. Now that I'm out of Isolation, it's time to get me closed back up. But they need to do a little more work on me. Plastic Surgery is called in to look at me and they decided to do reconstruction of the pectoral region. Basically, they separated the pectoral muscles from part of the chest where it was attached, and stitched them back together in the middle of my chest where they cover the sternum. The recovery from that was fun because for a couple of weeks I could only move my arms a little and had to keep the elbows by my side like I'm doing a Colin Macherie as a T-Rex impersonation.

After a week in ICU, I finally get to come home but am still under the movement restrictions and on a huge dose of oral antibiotics, plus a bunch of other meds. Oh, and no driving or riding in the front seat of a car. I can only ride in the back (if there is no rear airbag) and have to have the shoulder strap of the seat belt behind me. Made getting to and from the VAMC for followups a load of fun. Thankfully, the VA has a transportation contract with Lyft to drive people who have no transportation or can't drive back and forth to the medical center.

It's only yesterday that I took my last dose of antibiotics, and that reminded me today that I hadn't posted a followup. I can move my arms mostly normally now, with some limitations on moving them above my head plus weight restrictions. Naturally, the pectoral muscles still hurt because it will take a while for those to totally heal. But for the most part I'm OK.

Which I figured out by how the Cardio Thoracic team was pleased by how I healed up and surprised that I was doing so well that this was a lot worse than I thought at the time. Apparently, the MRSA had a very small patch of infection on the sternum, which means all it had to do was get through to that and it would be at my heart. So I am grateful that the specialists at the VAMC were all doctors from the Emory School of Medicine (Emory backs up right to the VA in here in Atlanta. The head of the surgery team for me is the head of the Cardio Thoracic department at the VA and the head of the Heart Transplant department at Emory and is one of the top cardiac surgeons in the US.

So, I survived as you can tell by the long post. A lot has happened in the last few months. But at least I'm still on this side of the grass. Now I start having to see the Oncology team about the tumor in my leg....

McFortner
Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".

Congratulations on your continued survival!

Er, yikes. What a year. Glad you're hanging in there.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

That sounded all sorts of horrible and put my gallbladder adventure in the proper light, as it were.
Glad you're all ok and hope it stays that way in the future.
...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The
Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-
Covered Balls!"

BIG oof. MRSA is terrifying in a whole lot of horrible ways, especially when you happen to be allergic to one of the major antibiotics they use to treat it. (I... may have just a tiny bit of experience with that particular bacteria.) Glad to hear you're doing, if not well, then at least much better. I'll keep my fingers crossed that you overcome the remainder of your ordeal.