shell shocked

It just keeps getting better and better. I called the neurosurgeons office Monday to set up an appointment but I can’t get in until June 17th because he is going to be out of the country doing ‘mission’ work. Fine. In the meantime I talked to my retired neurosurgeon glass blowing friend Dick and while he has been retired for 25 years and isn't up on all the newest treatments and approaches he did tell me a thing or two. first that the neurosurgeon won't do the angiogram, radiologist will and also if there is a repair the radiologist will do it. Then I asked which kind of aneurysm is worse, fusiform which has a bulge in the artery or the kind with a bubble on the side. Of course fusiform, which is what I have, is worse. With the bubble they can just seal it off. He doesn't know if they can put a stent in mine to fix it. Anyway a neurosurgeon friend of his just retired so Dick is going to call him and see what he thinks of the doctor I've been referred to and Dick will either have him call me or have me call his friend. So that's where I am on that.

But...went to the electrophysiologist yesterday about the continuous afib and the aneurysm. Doctor wants to take me off the blood thinner that prevents me from developing a blood clot in my heart from the irregular and/or rapid heartbeat that is afib because...aneurysm. We want the to blood to clot if it leaks in my brain. To do that he needs to perform a procedure that closes off the little bulge in the heart where the blood pools and forms clots. Don't like it but OK. And, because the medication is no longer controlling the afib and I'm in afib more often than not lately he says afib is progressive and if the med isn't working, it won't start working again so the fix is the ablation of the left atria for the afib. This means putting me under completely instead of the twilight sleep of the other procedure and the flutter ablation I already had. It's about a two hour procedure where he zaps the heart tissue all the way around both pulmonary arteries where they enter the heart and because this procedure is not completely 100% effective he will still close off the bulge and I will still be on afib med but it should control what's left of the afib but off the blood thinner. Whew! Following all that? There is one thing that could happen and that's if a thin wall from the heart to ? (don't remember what) gets perforated, it is very hard to stop the bleeding and could be fatal. Yay! But they know about that and are very careful and it only happens in 1 in about every 2,000 - 3,000 people. Odds don't sound that great to me but what else am I gonna do? Anyway electrophysiologist's office is arranging with the insurance and scheduling the procedure soon. Maybe in the next 10 days and then he will do the other procedure on a different day but soon.

Just got a call from the electrophysiologist’s office. I have a date for the ablation…June 3rd. A week from next Monday.

Forgive me for not coming around or answering comments as I intended to do. I’m just a little overwhelmed but know this, your comments and love and caring fill my heart. Thank you.