Many of you know about a year ago I was in a bad way after having a stroke while in my shop. I have been doing fine and feeling the best I have in years..... then my cardiologist called, out of the blue, a few days ago and said I had to come to her office right away. I went in to see what was up and she said I had to start anti-coagulation therapy as soon as possible. My response was WHOAAA...what is going on? she said my pacemaker is recording uneven rhythms and A-Fib episodes of my heart. These alone greatly raise my risk of stroke, but since I have been having "mini" strokes occasionally, I am in severe risk of a major stroke at any time, which with the condition of the curated arteries and some other heart related problems would most likely be fatal and if not probably severely debilitating. They had decided last year not to operate on my curated arteries. The main treatment for these problems to reduce the risk of stroke is the anti-coagulation therapy which is mainly blood thinners and a couple other fancy pills that do God knows what and they have to be taken on a rigid schedule. ( I am very poor at taking drugs.) The blood has to be kept at a certain "viscosity", which has to be closely monitored and adjusted constantly to my diet and other factors ( the way they explained it is, basically, the thinner blood will be easier on the heart and arteries and things will work better). Many people take this therapy and live a long natural life without problems. BUT.... I am NOT supposed to have ANY blood thinners as I have an ascending aortic aneurysm and the risk of it leaking and rupturing would be really high and it is pretty much unrepairable ( they will only touch it if it means trying to save my life). This is a damned if I do...damned if I don't kind of thing. The treatment for either problem is severely dangerous to me. They said it will be ultimately up to me which way I want to go but they will make a recommendation following all the tests.
I go Wednesday for an ultrasound of my heart, my aneurysm, and my curated arteries and my cardiologist will render her opinion. Then I have to go a hundred miles to Pittsburgh to talk to a vascular heart surgeon to discuss the same tests and my "risk" of taking the treatment with regard to the aneurysm.
THEN I HAVE TO DECIDE.
That's it in a nutshell. There are more involved problems like deteriorated nerves, severe stenosis of the spine and some major arteries and I have a surgery on July 11th to repair my morphine pump and another surgery after that to install a spinal cord stimulator. ( I can't start anything until after the first surgery). It seems all this also plays into this crap.
If I have a say...... I intend to live another twenty or so years...... but then that is not my decision... it's God's. I got a lot of projects to build yet.
I go Wednesday for an ultrasound of my heart, my aneurysm, and my curated arteries and my cardiologist will render her opinion. Then I have to go a hundred miles to Pittsburgh to talk to a vascular heart surgeon to discuss the same tests and my "risk" of taking the treatment with regard to the aneurysm.
THEN I HAVE TO DECIDE.
That's it in a nutshell. There are more involved problems like deteriorated nerves, severe stenosis of the spine and some major arteries and I have a surgery on July 11th to repair my morphine pump and another surgery after that to install a spinal cord stimulator. ( I can't start anything until after the first surgery). It seems all this also plays into this crap.
If I have a say...... I intend to live another twenty or so years...... but then that is not my decision... it's God's. I got a lot of projects to build yet.