Again a busy day, but not quite so bad as every other day this week. In fact, I didn't do any patients from 16:00 on... which was really nice.
One of my favorite people, Dawn, had surgery today on both of her knees. She'd hurt one (torn ACL) in a skiing accident on the first day of her vacation in March, and the other one was collateral damage from walking funny on the hurt one. She was, until yesterday, a student, and she didn't want to take time off to have the surgery... so she continued working and going to school, many 16-hour days there... plus she had another job that she worked about 20 hours a week. She was working evenings at the hospital as a tech and that's how I got to know her well. She stayed over many nights to help me out. Anyway, her surgery went OK, and she should've gone home later this afternoon. She'll start to work in two weeks as an evening tech. She's an admirable person, and I'm glad to know her. Weekend plans... I just don't know. Get some stuff done, or maybe not. I'm pretty exhausted mentally from my first week in CT, and, as usual, I'm not really up to doing much physically. There used to be an off-the-cuff diagnosis of a patient as a "Cardiac Cripple"... this is a person who is so afraid of having an additional heart attack that they wouldn't do anything. I kinda feel myself getting into that mode of thinking, although I'm fighting it as hard as I can. But the fear is there. For instance, I really wanted to go see Mom this weekend, but I'm kinda afraid to drive down there and spend two days that far away from "My" hospital. And I'm afraid to do a lot of other stuff too, anything that requires physical exertion, like mowing the lawn. Of course, I don't need to worry about the lawn, since Tyler mowed it yesterday... I forgot to mention that Matt came over to mow the lawn after Tyler got started on it. But it would be nice to go on a walk with Karen on this beautiful evening... Interesting... my legs don't hurt from walking anymore... because my chest starts hurting first, so I automatically slow down before the legs run out of blood.. So... I do want to be careful, but I don't want to restrict my life to just sitting and waiting for something to come along and kill me. Of course, I need to reserve judgement until I see the cardiologist in two weeks. Maybe I am doing the right thing for right now. I'm really pretty sure that I've got some majorly restricted coronaries. The last cath that I had done showed some that were pretty ratty, like up to 50% restricted, and that was five years ago. The main question is... can they be ballooned, as they have been twice in the past, or will I have to have my chest cracked? I definitely prefer the former, of course. One advantage that I had with my first coronary is that I had a lot of collateralization (smaller vessels develop into larger ones to carry the load), something that's fairly unusual in the heart. This was because of the slow development of the lesion in my left main... anyways, I think that this might be the case again, since the pain has been occasionally present for at least a coupla months, if not longer. A stress EKG will be able to tell the difference, of course, and that will probably confirm my diagnosis. To determine whether angioplasty is the best option I'll need to have a heart cath, and I have the feeling that this will happen immediately after I see the doc... It's gonna be a beautiful weekend. The last two days have been, and there should be three more just like them, only with higher temperatures. I'm really tempted to not do any work at all and just enjoy myself and my beautiful wife. Especially since I'm gonna be on call for the next week, and then on the 3rd and 4th of July. The 4th is voluntary... I was originally scheduled to be on call on the 3rd and the 5th, and I thought that that was rather silly, so I asked the girl who was on the 4th if she wanted off, and if she would trade me for the 5th. She jumped at the chance, of course. The 5th is when I see the cardiologist, and I really didn't want to take call after that anyway, especially if he admits me to the hospital to a cath. That would screw things up royally... Anyway, it's Friday night, and karen has had a hard week, and I need to go entertain her. I have to come up with something that doesn't involve eating or strenuous activity... I'm at a loss, here. Don't worry, I'll think of something... O'yeah, JD sent me an english language Father's day card too... Thanx, JD!