But I’m not sure.
Okay, time to pick through what I learned at Doctor Bui’s office this morning, besides the fact that driving downtown suuuuuuuuuuucks and that St.Paul’s is freaking HUGE.
But we already knew both of those things.[1]
Basically, what he told me was that he doesn’t want to risk doing the sort of open heart bypass surgery that was discussed before because of my obesity, history of infections, and the damage diabetes does to one’s blood vessels.
He think there is too high a risk of serious post-operative complications. Healing from having one’s sternum cracked and heart rerouted AS WELL AS having an artery taken out of one’s leg is not (irony intended) for the faint of heart.
Someone who heals slowly and/or poorly like myself would have a very hard time with it and the risk of post-op infections would be high.
Ergo, it’s too risky. Apparently my case is very complicated and tricky.
Which fucking figures.
Luckily, there is an alternative to open heart surgery. It might be possible to prop the partially blocked arteries in my heart open with what are called stents.
They are expandable tubes inserted into arteries and then expanded in order to open a blocked artery back up and keep it open.
No surgery is required. It can be done via the same wire-probe method that they did my angiogram. In fact, in theory, they could have done it while they were in there.
The people in that department (sounded like he called them “interstitial cardiology”?) have to okay it first, though. Hopefully I will hear from them next week.
If they turn me down, though, it’s back to square one. And I don’t have enough information to know what to do next.
For instance, I don’t know how much danger I am in right now. Having three 90 percent blockages and one 80 percent blockage in one’s heart sounds pretty bad. Like maybe it makes me a ticking time bomb, But I dunno.
So it’s hard to assess whether the open heart route would be worth the risk. If the alternative is certain death, then obviously I take my chances.
But if not…. well, let’s just say I now have insight as to why my case got passed around between surgeons. None of them could figure out what to do, which is how it ended up in Doctor Bui’s hands, according to him.
Not sure what to make of that. I hope it means that Doctor Bui is the best and therefore he gets all the toughest cases that nobody else can handle.
But on the other hand, it might mean he’s the bumblefuck of the group who gets all the hopeless cases because the GOOD surgeons don’t want doomed people like me messing up their performance metrics.
And I am not sure how to process all this new info. So I am trying to just stay calm and let my subconscious mind sort it out.
I am sure it will tell me the answer when it is through.
More after the break.
They call them chicken tenders but they don’t tend chickens.
The politician tried to capitalize on capital punishment in order to build political capital in the capital city.
Live for fun
My immediate response to the grimness in my life and in the world was despair.
What can I say, as a depressed person it’s kind of my go-to response for everything.
But now I feel more inclined to retreat into a childlike hedonism where I don’t give a fuck about anything except how to best entertain myself in the very near future.
Like now. Or later today. Tomorrow at the latest.
The sad thing is, that would be a far healthier response than despair. At least I would be dealing with the issue. At least I would be forming some kind of functional response that might actually help me cope with the harsh truths of life. At least I’d be trying.
That’s way better than just giving up on life and becoming a numbed out zombie.
It even could lead in a therapeutic direction. By protecting me from the corrosive effects of the harsh truths of life, this mildly delusional state could allow me to heal far faster.
I have never given myself that kind of shelter before. In my sublime stupidity, I thought it was always better to face the truth, no matter how harsh, and prided myself in not being as rampantly “delusional” as the common person.
You know, that common person who is infinitely stronger, healthier, happier, and way more functional than I have ever been.
Surely that’s a coincidence.
Oh, I also had therapy today. Nothing profound about the session but my therapist sounds very sick and I am worried about him.
He’s in his 70’s, after all. And I would hate to lose him, and not just because he’s one of the only private therapists in Richmond.
Not that location matters any more. I could have a therapist in Timbuktu. it’s all going to be over the phone or Zoom anyhow.
Might be tricky for them to bill the province though.
I also saw Doctor Caswell. Three doctors in one day, oh my, it’s enough to make a girl blush with coquettish modesty.
The upshot of that visit was that the approval for my new glucose meter, the Dexcom one, the one the province will actually pay for, has come through.
I ordered it via the pharmacy on the first floor of the medical building across from the hospital and will pick it up Monday.
That’s cool because I have really enjoyed being able to get a reading whenever I want and now I will be able to do it without begging Doctor Caswell for a new sensor every couple of weeks.
So things are looking…. up-ish.
Too bad civilization is doomed.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.
[[1]] And yet my small town mind still has trouble understanding how a single, complex use building can be so goddamned big. [[1]