The plot thinnens again...but there will be a happy ending

[nursedarry]

Hi everyone. Since I last posted, I've had an MRI (last week) and met with one of my surgeons, who I absolutely loved (today). I brought along a friend who's a drug rep and knows lots of A&P, just for moral support and I didn't want to drive after a whole 45 minutes of sleep last night, and she liked him too. Answered all my questions, really listened to me, and didn't speak in jargon. Made me feel like I am in very capable hands.



♥ Anyone who's claustraphobic, hates loud noises or doesn't like needles should avoid having a cardiac MRI. I'm none of those things but by then end, I was ready to run naked through a quiet field full of daisies. You're strapped in and shoved into a noisy tube with a needle in your arm and after awhile (I was in there for over an hour), you get the feeling the nurses may have turned the thing on and gone for a cup of tea. Actually, the staff were wonderful and I was in there so long because of the nature of my condition - it had never been seen before, so they needed lots of pictures. I got to see them, and yes, it was cool. Not an experience I wish to repeat, though.

♥ I've only got one pulmonary vein where it shouldn't be EDT: Actually, I had three parts of one vein where they shouldn't have been... One is coming from part of my lung which normally doesn't have pulmonary drainage. It's running from the lung to the Superior Vena Cava, which leads into the right atrium. The plan is to either take it off the SVC and attach it to one of the veins that is going to where it should (into the left atrium) OR just remove the vein and the part of the lung to which it's attached. It's a small piece of lung tissure and because of the how the vein is sited, it hasn't been used for proper respiration anyway. The other surgeon will decide when he gets in there.

♥ My mitral valve is worsening, and as much as he'd like to repair it, it may have to be replaced. But in order to keep me from needing more than one op, I'm all for this. Again, he'll decide when he gets in there.

♥ Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know I've got such bad Restless Leg Syndrome and other sleep disturbance side effects from the drugs I'm on (mainly the blood pressure ones), that I'm sleeping only one hour at a time, usually for less than four hours a night. I do apologise for all the whinging; I've re-read some of the tweets and boy, do I sound like a cantankerous twat. However, as a result, I've become quite depressed and groggy and grouchy and all those other things that go along with sleep deprivation. Doc has sent me home with a couple weeks worth of sleeping tablets and and is sending instructions to my GP to start me on antidepressants if I ask for them. The dose of the sleeping tablets is half what adults my age would normally take, but it's not recommended to take more because of the cocktail of tablets I'm already on and because of my heart condition. I CAN, however, start taking iron, which is one of the supplements used to treat RLS, so I'll see how that goes.

♥ The operation - four to six weeks away because of the need for the second surgeon who deals with "Grown Up Congenital Heart Problems." They only work at the hospital I'm going to a couple days a week, so I have to wait for a day the team is available. BUT, if my sleep problems can be alleviated, I'm okay to wait, AND the surgeon I met is keen to get in and do this surgery as it's more interesting than the usual stuff that comes across his table. (MRI doc said the same thing. Go me for being cool:)

♥ Finally, kids may or may not have any of this, but I don't need to even look out for it until they're at least 15. Doc thinks it's unlikely. So that's one less thing to worry about for now.


And completely off-topic, THANK YOU ALL FOR THE DRAGONS!!!

Comments

[privatebozz.livejournal.com]

Hey, I just wanted to tell you that I wish you LOADS of energy and strength for what you're going through. I don't know what exactly you have - to tell the truth, I had to skip through some of your entries after starting to read, because thanks to a very unpleasant hospital history of my own I've become somewhat oversensitive when it comes to stuff like this.

BUT maybe this helps a little: this horrible time I had, it only started getting better the moment I let go and made the decision to trust the surgeons. Even if they were fallible (and had failed before in my case) and maybe didn't care much about me as a person, I decided to put faith in them and put myself into their hands. I needed to, I was finished. Before, there had always been some unconscious part of me fighting them, dreading to give up control, but it became so bad that I couldn't go on anymore. I had nothing left. So I gave up, and that was the turning point. It was the hardest thing for me to do, but there was no other option. Looking back, I believe that this was one of the main lessons for me to learn.

A thing of major importance: dwell on some of the nice stuff you're going to do when you're better. I'm still amazed at how powerful these thoughts are. For example, when I was feeling really miserable I couldn't imagine anything more wonderful than sitting in a cafe with my sister, talking and drinking cappuchino. You know how much cappuchinos I had since then? Couple of hundreds, almost one per day - and back then I doubted I would ever feel normal again.

So what I've learned (mostly the hard way) is that diseases are no enemies. They want to teach us something, so it's important to face them, look at them. This needs some time and attention. But it's as important to go on. It's easy to become obsessed with your disease, to define yourself through it. I've seen people obsess about their disease, stuck there. Spending time in forums discussing their symptoms in detail, commiserating each other. I visited such a forum once - man, with every thread I went through I felt more ill. That can't be healthy. I'd choose the lunacy of the 'Supernatural' message board over that anytime...haha, and that's saying something! But well, on the other hand, I guess obsessing about slash pairings isn't very healthy either..

Oh, and I learned to really respect my body. It's *unbelievable* what this thing has gone through, and it still works so fine. It deserves a lot of love. :-)

It's really a challenge, what you're going through. I hope you're feeling good. My thoughts are with you.

Yara

[nursedarry.livejournal.com]

You're preaching to the convertted - I've never had a fear of procedures or docs or worried about someone else controlling my health, despite a few bad mistakes throughout my life. Not all of it is nice, but I believe very strongly in allopathic medicine - seeing it working first hand as a nurse. I know that after a few months, not only will I feel normal, I'll be better than ever, since everything will be put right!

And I don't blame my body for any of this, it's just a result of a few simple developmental errors. Indeed, I'm surprised and delighted that I've made it this far without this killing me!

I'm just frustrated at the amount of time and running around things seem to take, but that's the NHS all over, really. And it's frustrating that the drugs that are keeping me alive have so many nasty side effects, but when I think about the alternative...I'm sure I'll get through this with no problem.