So, let's see if we can wrap this up.
I was very anxious to get the results of all of the tests and get on with it. I still have suspected that they didn't entirely believe me about the pain I'd been having. Bea continued to be the help and joy she'd been since I got there. She eventually found me something to eat. Purely sustenance, nothing notable.
The pain that had been hiding since I'd gotten to the hospital the morning before, finally showed up. It would come, stay for 15 minutes or 45 and then fade. The longer the afternoon wore on, the more my patience was slipping. Russ and I both kept asking Bea when we would hear something. Bea always told us (pleasantly of course) that she was calling about it right now. Every so often she would even come in to tell us, without being asked, that she was calling the doctor. She finally came in to take my vital signs. I asked what was going on. She assured me that they were just waiting for the results of my stress test. I guess something in me had simply had enough. I told Bea, "At this particular moment, I don't give a damn about the stress test. I am hurting and I want someone to do something about it." Frankly, I was shocked. Apparently Bea wasn't. She continued to tell me that she would see what she could find out. (I'd have been even angrier if I had known that the entire time I'd been in the hospital, I had everything up to and including morphine available to me! Bea never offered me anything other than a Tylenol after I went off on her.)
We continued to wait. Finally Dr Rau came in. She told me that my stress test indicated a blockage, that my blood tests indicated I was a borderline Diabetic and the echo showed that I had a hernia on my diaphragm. I was stunned. She explained to us that the next step was an angiogram. This was a procedure where the surgeon would go in through the artery in my groin, send a lead along the artery to the heart. There, with the dye they would have injected, the could see if there was a blockage. If there was, they would inflate a small balloon on the end of the wire to open the artery wider. If that worked and it stayed open, that would be it. If it did not, they would implant a stint to hold it open. This is a metal mesh tube. If it seemed that this would not work because the artery was too far gone, they would close up shop and the next step would be open heart surgery with a bypass. Did I mention that I would have to be awake for the procedure?
Dr Rau further informed me that I must cut from my diet, sugar, fat (especially fried food) red meat and salt. Essentially, if it tastes good, I should not eat it. (Russ and I both suspected that Dr Rau doesn't follow her own advise very well. Easier to tell someone else to do it than to do it herself. However, that's not my business.)
Dr Rau told us that the procedure would be done sometime the next morning by Dr McKinney. I would have to (of course) fast after midnight. I was to be last in line. Not encouraging since I knew that the surgeon was very overworked being the only one available.
Dr Rau left and Russ and I dealt with this latest development. Frankly, I was scared to death. Somewhere along the way I had gotten it into my head that an angiogram was very painful. Let me assure anyone having to go through this, it is not. It certainly doesn't feel good but it isn't as bad as I'd feared. It's not much worse than the pain I'd been dealing with for a couple of months.
I was also extremely concerned about the possibility of open-heart surgery. Also, somewhere in all of my fear was the thought that I was getting into the territory of what had killed Daddy.
With a little help, I managed to finally let go of it and go to sleep.
(Just one more installment.)........