Cardiologist

Hope it’s for the best . . .

/ Tony / 5 Comments

The results from my 24-hour ECG came through last week. It seems that I do not need the Cardioversion treatment. The Cardiologist felt that the results didn’t warrant it and I was prescribed an ACE Inhibitor. My GP explained, or tried to, over the phone that this drug would help “relax my veins and protect my heart“. So at the present time, I am taking 1.25 mg of Ramipril with an instruction to book a blood test in 2 weeks time. It will then be decided if the dosage needs to be increased.

So that means that I am now on 6 different medications a day. I’m beginning to rattle a little I think. I have alarms set on my phone as some of the medications need to be taken at around the same time every day. It’s got to the stage where I need 2 Dosette boxes. One for the morning and another for the evening.

I’m quite pleased that the Cardioversion treatment is off the cards. I have read seen and pictures of the process and it was somewhat worrying. A number of people that have had it done have related that it does not always work, and that it can only be done once. So I could have ended up with the new medication anyway.

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The cardigan I’m knitting for my granddaughter has reached a critical stage. the main body is complete and I’m at the point when I am ready to start knitting the sleeves. And there is the problem! I will have to use double-pointed needles (DPNs) for this part of the job as the number of stitches involved means I cannot use circular needles in the standard fashion. I find using DPNs quite difficult and have never really had to use them except for a few rows when I was finishing a beanie hat.

I could use a technique called Magic Loop, but that is something I have never tried and wouldn’t want to learn on this piece of work.

So, the problem I face is … do I persevere with the DPNs and hopefully manage without any issues, or … do I put the work to one side and learn the Magic Loop technique with some scrap yarn. I am told that it is quite easy, once I have learned it, but it is ‘biting that bullet‘ which concerns me.

I will then have a button band to work on, and that is a different ball game altogether.

It’ll all be fine . . .

/ Tony / 4 Comments

Toward the end of last month, I had to go back to the hospital to review where I was after my stay back in February. I was scheduled to go in the middle of June, but with one illness and another, it got cancelled and rescheduled. We had been watching the news programs which showed patients waiting in corridors for long periods, waiting to be admitted to a ward. This was not our experience at all. More on this in a while.

Electrocardiogram
Echocardiogram

I was to have an Electrocardiogram which shows a graph of my heartbeat followed by an Echocardiogram, to get a look at how my replacement Mitral valve was working. The Electrocardiogram showed that I still had what the medical people call Atrial Flutter/Fibrillation. This is where the heart is beating irregularly. The image shows this quite well. The large peaks show that the blood leaving the heart is going at the correct pace, whereas the small peaks show the problem with the irregular heartbeat. The Echocardiogram however showed that the valve was behaving itself.

Cardioversion

The next step is I will need to wear a portable ECG monitor for 24 hours. this will give the Cardiologist a more accurate picture of the problem. The stage after that is the more worrying one. Once the data from the portable monitor has been analysed, the Cardiologist will decide If I need to undergo Cardioversion. Cardioversion is a medical procedure that uses quick, low-energy shocks to restore a regular heart rhythm. It’s a treatment for certain types of irregular heartbeats (arrhythmias), including atrial fibrillation.

As mentioned above, there had been TV news videos showing patients on trolleys, and in corridors for hours on end. My appointment was at 14:30. I arrived at 14:25. after both procedures and a good talk with the Cardiologist, I was out at 15:20. A total of 50 minutes. I was amazed as I was expecting to be there until 18:00ish.