This is CRAZY!

The Start of a Bad Week
In 4 days it will be the 1 year anniversary of my car accident. Monday, I started to feel sick. Scratch throat, head ache, body aches, and a fever. I felt terrible! Monday night a friend (and first counselor) and his wife came by. He gave me a blessing. Tuesday came along, and now three daughters and my wife are sick. My wife takes the girls to the doctor and I go to my own. The girls test positive for strep. I take the same test, but I don't test positive for strep, the doctor decides that if it looks like strep and acts like strep then it is strep. Everyone gets some antibiotics and we take the rest of the day off.

My Sister-In-Law
My sister-in-law came up to visit with here son and twins. Well, the kids got strep too. So it is now 2 adults and 5 kids with strep. My oldest daughter and my sister-in-law become the care givers. I felt bad that we gave her kids strep.

Wednesday
Everyone seems to be getting better, except me. I feel worse. I stayed in bed most of the day. I even stayed home from church. Sorry I missed the Court of Honor Jesse! That night we all go to my mother-in-laws for dinner. I still feel really bad. I take some Motrin and try and relax. We had Tacos for dinner. I start feeling what seemed to be indigestion and take some Tums. We all play some games, and since the kids are now out of school, we stay up late. We finally go home around 12:30am. We put the kids to bed and my wife and I go right to sleep.

Then It Happened
About 1:00am I wake up and the feeling is back, this time it feels more like pressure than indigestion. I take my medication and go back to bed. Well, around 3:00am I wake up again and it is worse! Now it is more like a "Oh my gosh! I cracked my sternum" kind of pain! I lay there for about and hour and then I get my wife up and go to the ER.

I Had A Heart Attack
At the ER my EKG looked fine, but I responded to Nitroglycerin and my blood test say that I had a mild heart attack. Once I am stabilized, I get a room. My wife is freaking out. Not on the outside. She is a pillar of being calm and cool under pressure, but she is just tore up. She makes me promise to giver her at least a 45 year notice before I die. I make her that promise.

The Procedure And Tests
The next day I am transfer ed to another hospital that has a special Cardiology Lab and the to a Catheterization to see what they can find. Also, If they find anything, they can take care of it. They find nothing. They do a chest x-ray and find out I am recovering from pneumonia. What!? Pneumonia? They to a chest CT scan and it looks just fine. They do an ultrasound of my heart and It is just fine. They do an electrocardiogram and it is just fine. They did and other test (I can't remember what it is, I call it the bubble test, because they run small bubbles through the hear to test to see if there are any wholes in the walls of the heart or between chambers.) That test is just fine too.

The Risk Factors
I don't drink or smoke. My cholesterol was 200. It should be bellow that, but is not a big problem. I am a little over weight still, but I am loosing weight. I do exercise a little, but Ia m gradually increasing what I am able to do. I am only 42. There is nothing that a doctor would see and say, "Hey you need to change now or you will have a heart attack in the next few days." but that is what actually happened.

Home
I am now at home on bed rest. I feel tired and take twice as many pills. Now I carry Nitro pills, just in case of another heart attack. I will be setting an appointment with my Cardiologist tomorrow and see about getting into a recovery exercise program and now no fat or salt. An entire new diet.

Thank You!
Thank you to all my friends and family for all the support you have given me, my, wife and my family. Everyone stay in touch and post a comment. It looks like I now have more to blog about.

The Big Day - Surgery

My Last Day
I am not sure why, but my younger daughters were pretty concerned about the surgery. I did everything I could to keep things calm and act as if this were just a normal trip to go see the doctor. No such like. My second oldest had to have her picture taken with me, just in case, and wanted to spend the last day with me just in case. So we watched Chicken Little. As soon as I get the picture I will post it.

The Day Before
My sister-in-law came up for a couple of reasons. She is an officer in the Air Force and was going to be giving the "Oath of Office" to another officer at the Iwo Jima Memorial. She also came up to spend the night with the kids while I recovered from surgery. She would leave for DC upon my return. I think it worked out well.

The Wedding
That Saturday, after surgery, a young woman from our church was getting married. My mother-in-law, my wife, and my oldest daughter all had part in making sure the wedding went well. I was informed that with the friend taking the "Oath of Office" and the wedding plans, it would not fit into the schedule to also have a funeral so I was forbidden to die (jokingly of course.) I decided to not disappoint anyone and live.

The Joke
I mentioned this to several people, but first told it to my daughters. No-one thought it was funny though. I was having dinner with my daughters and of course the subject of the surgery came up. This time it was how they were going to put me to sleep. Anesthesia was going to give me an epidural. I explained that they would give me drugs in my back to numb me and they would operate that way. I left out a lot of details on purpose and as a joke. For example, there would be a sheet between me and the doctors so I would not be able to see the procedure. I told my girls that I would get to watch. Not only would I get the epidural, but they would give me a number of other medications to relax me, and allow me to sleep. I told my girls that I would be awake. So here is the joke. I told them that I was going to wait until the doctor started cutting on me, then at the moment he touched me with the knife, I would scream "OOOWW!" then just say "Sorry, just Kidding." My girls did not find that funny and listed the reasons why that was I a bad idea along with everyone else. I thought it was hilarious and would make a funny scene in a sitcom. I jinxed myself though.

The Big Day of Surgery
So I show up at the hospital at 8:45am with my wife and Mother-in-law. I fill out some paperwork then head to the waiting area for surgery. I check in at the waiting area and wait for them to call me back. They gave me a pager and wen it beeped I was to return to the surgery prep area and the beeper was to stay with my wife. That way if they need to her (i.e. when I was ready for surgery and done with surgery they could just beep her.) They beeped me I went into and curtained off area with a bed and a chair for my wife. They gave me a robe, a hair cover, and socks. I got dressed and waited for anesthesia. They came and asked how I wanted to be put under and I chose the epidural. (By the way, if you are ever going to deliver a baby, I say take the epidural asap! it was great.) They tested the epidural my placing and Ice cube on my arm and asked if it was cold, and of course it was. Then they placed it on my stomach near the surgery site and asked if it was cold. The first time it was. They gave me more medicine and then the second time, I could hardly feel that they touched me. Once that was ready, I met the surgery staff and we went over the procedure. We even wrote on the area to be operated on and designated what site to do the procedure and what side not to touch. Shortly there after, they wheeled me back for surgery.

What We've All Been Waiting For - Surgery
They wheeled me back onto the operating room and moved me off my bed and onto to the operating table. It felt really weird because my legs were numb. The strapped me down to the table, tapped my feet down, taped my arms down, and even put a seat belt on me. Then they place a drape between my upper body and the doctors. They gave me more medicine through the epidural that would allow me to relax and sleep, but they could wake me and ask me questions if they needed to. I fell asleep. All of the sudden I woke right up and screamed! I had not received enough medicine through the epidural and I have never felt such pain when they cut me open. See I jinxed myself with my joke. They gave me more medicine waited about 20 minutes then continued without any problems. Surgery was supposed to take about an hour. It ended up taking 4 1/2 hours. The plan was to put in one stint. It would block the lower hole in the aorta and flow would stop through the second hole and the first. Well it didn't work they way. When they blocked the lower hole, blood started to flow into the upper hole and form a new channel. They ended up putting to stints and each had a small extension, make 4 pieces of hardware in all. They woke me up to let me know it was over and wheeled me to recovery.

Recovery
I have had surgery several times and recovery was the easiest with the epidural. Shortly after returning to recovery I woke up and talked with the nurses. All of the sudden I felt dizzy. My heart rated dropped from 71 bpm to 31. I went pale, they laid me down, prepped some drugs, then it went right back up. I ended up staying quite some time in recovery. They monitored everything. I eventually got my own room.

Spending the Night
The only room they had was a one person room. They brought in one of those fold out chairs that turns into a bed, so Stephanie was able to spend the night. As usual every two hours they woke me up for vitals. I could not sleep. At about 2 am. I started to feel really sick so I paged the nurse. Took them quite some time to respond. The doctor (looked like a young intern) on call happen to come in to check on me. Because of the type of procedure I had, nausea is a really bad sign, so he ordered and EKG and blood work. I knew it was going to be bad when the nurse asked if she should call phlebotomy. That means she can't or is really bad a drawing blood and wanted someone else to do it. The doctor said that they weren't going to be around until 4 am and that the test couldn't wait that long. So the nurse drew the blood. Oh my gosh! Let's stick in the needle and see how much we can move it around. In, out, in, out, wiggle left, wiggle right. It was so bad, my wife had to turn away. I thought to myself "She has 5 seconds to get that in or I will asked her to get someone else to do it." Then I started to count. She got it in before I got to "4". My hand still hurts were she did it. Another nurse came in and did the EKG. The setp-up took longer than the proceedure and everything looked good.

No Sleep
The nurse left the heart rate machine in there and it started to beep because the batteries were running down. So I called to have them come and get it. No one did. It beeped for a half an hour before it finally died. Plus the constant come and checking in on me, I actually didn't sleep until I got home.

Going Home Well, were were told that the doctors would do rounds and if everything looked good, then I would go home. Doctors came by at 7 am and everything looked good. Then they wanted an ultra-sound before I went home. So we got it done. Then they wanted an x-ray before I went home. Got it done. Then the surgeons wanted to see me. They did. I finally got to go about 3 pm instead of 8 am like I was told. Oh well.

Home
I am very tired and I have a few incisions that are healing. The stitched up the inside, but they used a glue on the outside. I am still pretty sore, but I will be just fine.

Pre-Surgery Meeting

The Waite

As advanced as the medical profession is, I don't believe they have the one basic tenant of all business down pat. Scheduling. I was actually seen and worked on by someone for 45 minutes to and 1 hour. But I spent 4 hours at the hospital. Aside from that, the care is great.

First Meeting

Well we met with the doctor and asked all the questions. I seems that when they doctors first saw the problem, they thought it might heal itself. After the last CT Scan and they saw the holes and the blood moving the wrong way it became clear it was only going to get worse. The reason for surgery now is to avoid and major arterial wall damage that would require a more extensive surgery. What is planned is quite basic.

The Surgery

First they will give me anesthesia, then the doctor will cut a 4 inch slice into my groin (see the illustration.) Inset the sting and sew me back up. The stint will block the blood flow into the wall of the artery and it will then heel up.

Recovery

I can take it easy and do just about everything after surgery. 2 weeks later I can start PT and walking again. 4 weeks and I can start running and pool work. 6 weeks and I should be just fine.

The Bad News

I can't believe this, even with my medication my blood pressure was 155/93 and I weighed 208 lbs. That is 2 shy of the most I have even weighed!

So Cute!

My second daughter ask my wife if she could stay home and spend the day with me, just in case I don't make it. I thought it was cute, my wife didn't.

Next...

Wednesday October 1, 2008; early in the morning will be surgery. My next blog will be October 2nd, after I get home (unless I don't make it.)

P. S. - I have an account at for live video broadcasting. When I am rebroadcasting again, I will let you know what date and time. To see my broadcasts go to www.stickam.com/larsen0966

The Aneurysm

Questions From My Friends
Okay, people have been asking about my aneurysm. Technically, in my case, it is called a dissection. The aorta has several layers of walls to protect it from damage and to contain the blood when blood pressure levels change. There are two holes in the inner wall of my aorta. Blood is running into one hole and has formed a channel inside the wall of the aorta, then running out the other.

Danger!
My dissection measures about 3.75 cm. The danger zone is anything over 5 cm. After it reaches 5 cm, the aorta has a high probability of blowing within 6 months.

Now Or Later?
When first discovered during my accident, the doctors decided to wait and watch. Now after a few months they want to operate. They tell me I could wait, keep monitoring it as I have been, but the doctors want to take care of it now. What was the change? I am not completely sure. It has been determined that the blood is flowing into the bottom of the wall and flowing in backwards up the aorta then out the second whole. At the time the doctors told me they wanted to operate, we decided to ask around, think about the situation, and then make a decision. I have not made one yet.

To Run or Not To Run, That Is The Question
Well, I am on heart medication to keep my blood pressure down. Not that it was high, the doctors just want it low. The problem is the medication makes me super tired and I sleep all the time. So, even though I am walking, I don't get enough exercises so I am gaining mega weight. With additional weight, my blood pressure is getting higher. It all seems quite counter productive. I also want to get back to running, but my right ankle is just not there yet. I still need more mobility before I will be able to run on it. The doctor says running will be no problem. Though your heart rate increases a lot during exercise, your blood pressure has a very small increase as long as you are not over exerting yourself. So first chance I get, I will run!

Question Of The Day
Do I operate now or Later? Stay tuned and find out what I decide!

How Far I Walk

I need to get my fat butt in shape, but I do not feel like I am making Progress. The Appointment I had my Vascular (having to do with my Aneurysm) appointment this past Tuesday. Well, in spite of Medication my blood pressure is not where they want it 131/60. The top number needs to be bellow 130. In spite of increased walking, I now way 200.0 lbs. New Information My aneurysm hasn't changed in size or length, but I had a CT scan with a special dye called contrast. What they saw were two holes in the wall of the Aorta wall. One at the bottom of the aneurysm and one at the top. As they watched the dye they saw it enter the bottom hole and move up to the top hole and out. That is right, the blood was flowing the wrong way through the wall of my Aorta. Now they want to do surgery to fix it. We decided to talk about it (We as in my wife and I, and talk to other medical professionals who are our friends.) My biggest concern is that surgery was originally ruled out because in 25 years the hardware would go bad and need to be replaced. That would make me 66. Not a good age for surgery. Doctors said it would be better to wait a few years because medicine was advancing and new technology may be available. Well, now they want me to have surgery, which mean I am looking at surgery again at about 66. One thing is for sure though, it is not getting better and it is not changing fast. But it ca only get worse. Once it gets a centimeter bigger, the odds are 90% chance of this thing blowing with in six months of that change. My Weight Well, the medication I am on to keep my blood pressure down make me tired. So tired that as soon as I finish walking I need to take a nap. The problem is I am gaining weight fast, because I really am quite inactive. I might be up to 3 miles a week, but that isn't crap. And then I get tired and can't do anymore. So I am gaining weight and it is causing my blood presure to go up! We are trying to find a new medication. I will keep you posted.