Life as we know it...
When you think about it, life can be of three things:
1. Really Crappy
2. Lackluster
3. Phenomenal
Friday my friends, would have been one number 1...
Let's first start off with the idea that I had to use 8 hours of vacation time at work to go and have a medical procedure done that I don't find, in any sense, a "vacation". I have been dreading this day for....ohhh....lets say 2 years and have been able to put it off for over a year (I am the QUEEN of bullpoopy excuses)...and the time had come for the dreaded.....drumroll please...
...right heart cath.....
Now normally, a right heart cath involves pucuturing a large vein in your groin, inserting a plastic tube up the length of your body until the line ends up in your heart (lucky you!). Sound lovely to you? Well let me set the picture for you...
Thursday I got off of work at 6:18 PM....2 hours behind because I had to make up for the work I was going to miss while on my so called "vacation". So I got home: grumpy, tired and hungry. I chowed down, what my dad endearingly called, "my last meal". Thanks dad, really appreciated that one.
So I went to bed around 9:45 PM with the worst headache ever, popped (2) 50mg of tramadol and 2 tablets of sidefil, and stayed asleep until 8am the next morning. Ahhhh sleep...
The plan was to leave at 9am to be at UCLA at 11AM for pre-op. I was cool with that...I can deal with not eating in the morning till around noonish usually so I thought I was going to be fine. Well was I wrong.
So I got admitting and sat next to an older lady who was about ready to hack up her left lung and an young guy probably around 28 or so, bitching out his girlfriend how she was a real bitch for not showing up on his surgery day.
...nice...
So I got my wristband on, and signed away my life to UCLA saying that they are free to bill me for anything they want from here on out... (Blue Cross and I like BFF's)...
The nurse takes me to the elevator and we go down to the basement level for the heart cath lab. Now right there, something freaks me out about going to a "basement" for surgery...it's just weird...now I have been to the basement many times in my previous visits to UCLA and have found it to be always busy, loud, and really smelly...it's just gives me "the creeps". So I wait 45 min (it is now around noon and my stomach is growling and surgery is 1 hour away).
So the next nurse tells me that I have to go to p.o. (pre-op) to get ready. So I strip down to the fashionable attire of a perwinkle UCLA gown. Mom and I are twiddling our thumbs until 1:15p. OK...like usual Saggar (my pulmonary Hypertension specialist and Heart-lung transplant doctor) style...we are running behind. Brian (the lab tech who works for him exclusively) then comes over and says "oh your here already, nobody told me" ...ummm yeah duh....here and hungry!
Side note: Brian is, as Randy Jackson would say it, "my dawg". He hooks me up with all the good meds and stuff during pre-op.
So I get my I.V. in, he gives me a new tatoo with his Sharpie "No IV, No BP" on my left arm because of my PICC line in my left arm. Just a friendly reminder for all.
Tick-toc....tick-toc....we sat there until 4:20 people!!!! Brian and I started playing 21 because we were so freakin' bored. Saggar had a code blue on the 4th floor, then he had to go to ICU....blah blah blah...just get to my damn surgery already. So Saggar called Brian on the cell and told him to wheel me up to the forth floor. On the way, I ran into the lady who gave me my PICC line in July in the elevator, had to chat with her for awhile. Then I ran into my neighbor who works for Johnson and Johnson, talked to him for a while. Then I ran into the nursing team that helped me my during my 26 day stunt there 2 years ago and then I had to give an update to them. So then I see Mekalia (Saggar's assistant) who had all these damn forms for me to sign about giving 120mL of blood for their study...sure whatever....lets just get this bad boy going. Then all of a sudden I see little Saggar (Saggar's left hand man...and also his cute, but not as good-looking little brother)...he says that he is going to do the heart cath along side of his bro. OK no problem. So they strap me down to the table. Pour Iodine all over my neck (no one is putting a wire anywhere near my groin/vajay-jay area)...and then tells me,"whatever you do, don't move"....ummm ok! So he gives me 3 shots of numbing crap to my throat (the worst part of it all...the stuff burns way worse than a bee sting). He inserts the Swan-Granz cath in my jugular, then puts the wire through and starts taking measurements of my pulmonary pressures and cardiac output...then walks in big Saggar...and sits right infront of my face (MY SAVIOUR!!!)...he looks at me with his big beautiful blue eyes and asks how I was doing (I melted at that moment). I was thinking well....my throat is on fire from the numbing solution...my neck is cracked over on it's side at 45 degree angle, I smell like Iodine, and my heart feels like it is fluttering like crazy and is about to explode....so he grabs my hand as his bro gives him the run down...I really do love this man...I think he is the best Doc a girl could have. So, he tells me that I am doing great, but I could tell on his face that he wasn't happy. So they wrap up the test....1.5 hours later....they walk outside while Brian covers my stitches and cleans me up. They went into the back room and then went outside to talk to my mom. They came back in and big Saggar sits next to me on the table and says,"well we are doing well but not as well as expected". Oh man....that sucks!!! So we go over my results and he says that I have 2 options...keep increasing the Remodulin, or increase the Remodulin and introduce a third medication. Damn....
Everyone with PH knows that every new therapy comes with side effects so I choose to just keep increasing my remodulin. He said that that works for him and that we will look at going on Tracleer (the pill version) next summer after my heart cath next year (I was hoping to start it this year).
How freaking depressing. I went from 142 mmHg 2 years ago to 105mmHg this year (a normal person is 15 to 30 mmHg) and a cardic output of 3.08 liters per min (noraml is 4 to 6 liters). We all looked pretty sad coming out of that Heart Cath lab. I think I really let down both of the Saggar brothers. I know "I" personally didn't do it...but they had such looks of disappointment on their faces, and when I started to get all updet, Big Saggar got upset. We were a bunch of crying freaks. So he gave me a big hug and told me that the good thing is that now he knows my stats so he can try to give me more agressive therapies that he thinks will work better. Saggar and I did a 6 minute walk test and I did the best I had ever done (over a thousand feet) which is farther than a average person does in 6 min...and he was suprised to see that my O2 levels increased when I walked. He looked a little puzzled.
So as mom and I were walking back to the car she said that Saggar came out and said that the Cath went well but my result were not that great. He said that it wasn't anything I was doing but it was the drugs weren't high enough. He said that I was still in heart failure and that I was still "a very sick person" and that we still have a long way to go before I can go off the I.V.
When we left it was 7:30 PM, we were stuck in nasty-ass LA traffic and I still had my headache.
So ya....this weekend was a told crapper weekend. Stitches, a black and blue neck, and a killer headache. Work will be a bitch tomorrow when everyone asks what the hell happened to my neck. I should just send out a mass email saying that I was not in a bar fight or anything I was just sliced and diced at UCLA.
Good thing is, I increased my meds yesterday, my headache went away, my redness went away and I had a heck of lot easier time breathing on this new dose.
Well peeps, we are one step closer but many feet away...
Europe is only 2 months away...something to look forward to....
and the trip with Saggar to Houston for the PHA 2008 conference! =)
Just another "peep" from the bird on the wire...
Photo 14. Me, Gabe and Aymee' waiting for our table.
Photo 14. Me, Gabe and Aymee' waiting for our table.
Photo 15. Aymee' and I...and no we are not related!
Photo 16. Lisa and I at the bar...drink #3
Photo 17. Lisa laughing over her "Asian Glow"
Photo 18. Lisa and Peggy
Photo 21. Aymee' and Gabe (and Ayden in womb)
Photo 22. Laura and I
Photo 7. Sleepy little Ayden!
