After 18 days of waiting to find out what his nurse practitioner saw in his chest x-ray, Hick finally got an answer. It came from a cardiologist on Thursday.
"The pressure on my spine is from arthritis. She says I have some blockage in some coronary arteries. That it's not unusual for a man my age, with diabetes and high blood pressure. But she doesn't want to okay me for the surgery until I have a stress test and some other test. She doesn't think there will be time to have that done by next Friday's surgery date. So I'll tell my NP's office to have the surgery re-scheduled."
Which they did, and Hick's surgery will now be in August. He doesn't have a date yet for the stress test or whatever else. This is Hick's rendition from his conversation with the cardiologist. I'm hoping it's fairly accurate. Hick is sometimes an unreliable narrator!
Turns out the MRI that Hick has been harping about, trying so hard to get scheduled, was actually a CT Scan all along! You'd think he might have let that slip at least once, in the 18 days he's been talking about it. But no. He called me after the cardiologist appointment, referring to a CT Scan, and I had to ask if he'd had some other test. Nope.
Anyhoo... we don't feel too concerned about the cardiologist's findings. We'll wait (who knows how long!) to see what the stress test reveals.
Some blockage in some coronary arteries is a pretty serious thing! Are they going to wait until he has a heart attack before they schedule stent surgery? Or maybe "some" blockage isn't enough to carry any urgency?
ReplyDeleteGrab your scalpel and get on the next plane! The cardiologist didn't seem overly concerned. I doubt she sees many patients of Hick's profile with sparkling clean coronary arteries. According to the local obituaries, they are not all dropping dead.
DeleteI don't even have a passport, much less enough money for a plane ticket. Sorry. Also I don't trust your president and ICE, they might jail me for being not-paper-white with my tanned light-olive skin.
DeleteWell, then. I don't have to prepare the guest room, or waste money on antiseptic!
DeleteThey will not do an angiogram, which is how they can insert the stent unless there are signs of a heart attack. The great thing about the angiogram is that it is a diagnostic tool that doubles as the stent's ride to an artery.
DeleteGood to know. The cardiologist also took Hick off one of his blood pressure meds. Thought he was taking too much, which could cause the dizziness he's been having.
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