almost over, bloomers, and the Fourth

the buddha is reminding me to keep it serene

I’m bored. All this waiting for this procedure and that procedure and then recovering from this or that or preparing for this or that, trying to stay as healthy and hydrated as possible before and after, not getting over tired or heat stressed or dehydrated. I want my veins and arteries as plump as possible for all this. I don’t ordinarily mind getting hot and sweaty, getting out in the yard and weeding and watering and pulling out gone by stuff and pruning back and fertilizing with rolled up bandana for a headband, hat and another bandana for wiping off the sweat on the rest of my face. I’ll come in hair drenched, headband soaked and sit under the fan while drinking cold water til I cool off enough to take a shower. But basically the last six weeks all I allow myself is 45 minutes to an hour first thing in the morning and then the rest of the day just sitting around reading or playing games on my phone or streaming some show or other. All well and good but I’m used to being more active and the yard has gone almost completely feral. And the shop yard and Pam’s plantings, totally. If it weren’t for for Joe and Mary who come mow and trim over there twice a month it would be up to my chin. And even so the wild grape vines, virginia creeper, poison ivy, and briar are making great headway. 

Finally, I’m approaching the end. Tomorrow is the pre-op, some bloodwork and I don’t know what else, for the cerebral angiogram scheduled for next Tuesday, four days from now, as well as the pre-op for the Watchman procedure the following Monday which entails another transesophageal ultrasound to measure that little pocket or bulge off the left atria of my heart that the procedure will close off, preventing blood from pooling and clotting in there, so that they have the proper size screen, not too small, not too big. So another dip into twilight sleep for that.

The heat lovers are blooming…the rangoon creeper is coming into full bloom, the mexican bird of paradise which had a rough start with some sort of deformity has recovered and is blooming, the pink plumerias, and the night blooming cereus is putting on buds.

Tuesday night the evening air had a pink or orange quality to it, couldn’t decide which, so pinky orange. 

Of course, it’s the Fourth of July today. I've put out the flag. It may be the last true Fourth of July if Trump gets elected again considering the Supreme Court’s disastrous ruling about presidential immunity from prosecution of criminal conduct regarding ‘official acts’, which they did not define, all to protect one man. Trump is already calling for military tribunals and jailing of his perceived enemies; Liz Cheney, President Biden and VP Harris, Schumer, and Pence specifically. He’s made no bones about using the DoJ to retaliate against his detractors and still talks about rounding up millions of residents and putting them in detention camps, giving Ukraine to Putin and promising to prevent nations bordering Russia from being admitted to NATO. And so many things so much worse. Essentially, what the Supreme Court has done is remove all the guardrails that the Founders put up to prevent a president from becoming a de facto king. And those bastards on the Court deciding this issue, during their confirmation hearings, claimed that this nation was based on the rule of law and no one, not even presidents, is above the law.

I’ll leave you with the last paragraph of Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter from July 2, 2024:

“The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America,” Massachusetts delegate John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, on July 3. While we celebrate the signing of the final form of the declaration two days later, the adoption of the Lee Resolution marked the delegates’ ultimate conviction that a nation should rest not on the arbitrary rule of a single man and his hand-picked advisors, but on the rule of law.

disturbing dream and anxious anticipation

Wednesday night as I was laying in bed I was thinking about my sister, about her ability to see ghosts, mostly strangers that gathered around. She would never engage them and could block off that part of her consciousness or psyche or whatever part of her that allowed her to see when it became too disturbing. Her husband appeared to her three times after he died that I know of, there was a ghost cat that she could feel jumping onto her bed at one of the houses she had lived in, a poltergeist that threw things off her wall once, and she told me one time she saw our father walking down the beach where our family beach house was after he had died suddenly from a stroke, the same way that she had died. I was thinking about all this and wondering why her and not me and why had she not come to visit me, you know, just to say goodbye at least. Anyway these were my thought when I went to sleep. This is the dream I was having when I woke up Thursday morning crying:

My sister and I were at a restaurant for breakfast to discuss something. The first table was too noisy so we moved to another table in the back where a man was already sitting. We were talking and the man made a comment about our conversation sort of supporting what we were talking about. It was still noisy so we moved to another table in front. The server came to take our order. My sister ordered french toast. Looking over the menu I couldn’t decide so I just said to bring me french toast too but before our food came we decided to leave and go to her apartment (this was a place where she had never lived in life). Later in her apartment we were sitting on the floor and talking and she was being very unkind towards me. I got up and walked over to the table. I said to her, you don’t like me very much do you and she said no, which really hurt. She told me to call our aunt (someone I do not know in life, all three of our aunts have been dead for sometime) who was at my house and see if she wanted to come there and give some input to the funeral we were planning so I went in the next room and called her and when I was trying to give her directions on how to find the building my sister’s apartment was in my sister grabbed the phone away from me and gave our aunt the directions as if I was incapable of being clear. Then a woman and her two kids, a young boy and a younger girl, a neighbor in the apartment next door, came in and the boy was just a wild child running around and yelling. I told him to stop bothering me and he punched me in the stomach with a stick like a broom or mop pole. Leave me alone I shouted and left the apartment to wait for my aunt outside. The little girl followed me out the door and into the vestibule and gave me a hug, never saying anything and then went back in the apartment. I continued outside and when my aunt arrived she had brought my dog Minnie who was being a happy dog greeting the other people out there like she does. We headed back in to my sister’s apartment walking through two vestibules, one after the other, and when we went in my sister’s apartment she was having a big party like maybe a Christmas party. There was candy and other refreshments on the table. Everybody was having a good time except for me. I was very sad. My sister asked me if I wanted her to get Minnie but not in a way that conveyed caring, more like indifference, and I told her no, she would just bother everyone and be underfoot and I started crying. 

That’s when I woke up and I was crying and so sad. I couldn’t believe my sister had been so mean to me and it took some effort to stop crying after I woke up. Had to tell myself that was not my sister in the dream although to be honest, she could be pretty condescending when people didn’t behave the way she thought they should and she had lashed out at me than once when she thought I was butting into something she thought was her prerogative. To her credit, she would usually apologize to me later. Maybe she’s mad that I kept her on the breathing machine for 7 hours after it was apparent she was mostly dead already while I waited for all the family that could to get there and say their goodbyes.

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I went to SHARE on Thursday but I think I overdid it a little. Not at SHARE because although the first hour was pretty much non-stop after that it slowed down and I had plenty of time between food orders to sit. It was really after when I was running my errands…taking the cardboard to the recycling location, giving a book to the little library across the street from the Post Office, returning a book to the big library, carrying a watermelon up the stairs to Pam’s/Robin’s house, taking leftover milk and another watermelon to my neighbor down the street all in the heat of mid-day so I was in afib pretty much from about 1 PM to about 4 when it had calmed down. Wasn’t sure if I was going to go to yoga last night but by the time I had to leave I felt fine and so I did and have been fine since.

The nurse never did call me back on Monday but I wasn’t concerned because whatever had been going on those first four days after the procedure had settled down but she did finally call while I was at SHARE. My doctor wants me to wear a monitor for a week just to check and see what is going on with my heart. I told her it had all settled down and I was feeling pretty good but, you know, if that’s what he wants, OK. I asked if he still wants to do the Watchman procedure (closing off that little pouch where blood pools during afib), she said yes, and if he still wanted to do it the same day as the cerebral angiogram which has not been scheduled yet. My appointment with the neurosurgeon is Monday and I’m to call my electrophysiologist’s office and let them know when the angiogram is scheduled. Fortunately both doctors have offices on the Memorial Hermann SW hospital campus. If both procedures can be done on the same day it would be one less trip in and I'd have both those behind me at one time. The angiogram goes through an artery but the Watchman goes through a vein which I guess is why both procedures can be scheduled the same day. Then all the heart stuff will be behind me (for now anyway, the afib could come back or not be completely repressed). The angiogram will determine if the neurosurgeon just wants to keep an eye on the aneurysm, which I gather is having MRIs on a regular basis, or if it needs immediate attention. I’m not sure how he would repair a fusiform aneurysm and I’m resisting the urge to google it again. I’ll find out soon enough on Monday.

I will be so glad when I finally have some resolution and have something to talk about than my heart and my brain. Like the unbelievable whackadoodle clown show cult that the GOP has become. Boats, and batteries, and sharks; bitcoin mining? The outright adoration shown by the republican House and Senate when he visited yesterday? What the actual fuck!

 

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.   

 

the rest of the story

The afib stopped Friday late morning about 11:30, back to a sweet sinus rhythm, and I felt great all day until about 5:30, quarter to six when I was sitting on the couch and this feeling washed over me leaving me feeling light headed, or probably more accurate, a little disassociated with a weakness in my arms and legs and a feeling of things just not being right, this was not normal and I was not in afib. I told my husband I was feeling really weird. Do you need to go to the hospital he asked. Maybe I replied. So we got in the car and he took me to Memorial Hermann SW hospital in Houston which is where my electrophysiologist has his  practice in the Heart Rhythm Center there on the campus. It took about 45 minutes to get there and on the way I texted both my kids and Sarah who had just left work and was about 10 minutes away said she’d meet us there. 

Sarah was there and waiting when Marc dropped me off at the ER and went to park the car. We walked in and I told the woman at the intake that I might be having a heart attack or heart related problem. First thing they did an EKG and took my blood pressure and told me to wait til they called me. Then they took blood and urine. Back to waiting. Then they did a CAT scan of my head and neck. Back to waiting. Then they did a chest x-ray. Back to waiting. By now the disassociation and weakness had passed. Then they called me again and took me back to an actual room where they took my blood pressure again and set an IV. Is that really necessary I asked. Yes, in case we need to blah blah blah. But then she went on to say that they don’t put the IV in at intake because drug addicts who have collapsed veins will come in and complain about something, get the IV and then leave and use the IV to get high. 

Sarah was with me during all these previous tests and once in the room she went and fetched Marc from the waiting room. They took me back for another CAT scan with contrast (injected dye in the IV) and then we waited again for the results of all the tests. The PA came in with all the results, heart fine and strong, lungs great, no sign of heart attack or stroke, arteries clear, also no explanation for the pain in my back Tuesday or the disassociation and weakness that sent me to the ER. So all that was fine but…the CAT scan with contrast showed “Mildly tortuous basilar artery without significant artherosclerosis or narrowing. Focal ectasia or fusiform aneurysm involving the basilar tip measuring 5 mm.” So, I have an aneurysm. Yay me!

By now it’s about 3 AM, the doctor wakes up the neurosurgeon to see what he wants to do so they admit me for an MRI on Saturday and I can either stay in the hospital til Monday when he can do a cerebral angiogram or go home and arrange the procedure as an out-patient. Sarah and Marc went home and I got up to a room about 3:30 when they put a heart monitor on me, blood pressure cuff and the finger thing for blood oxygen level, took more blood, attached a drip to the IV. I might have dozed off and on for a couple of hours and then around 7 AM they did an echocardiogram which was kind of cool. I could see my heart beating and inside it at the valves opening and closing. The tech took a bunch of pictures and measurements of the inside of my heart. 

Finally the neurologist’s assistant came in and interviewed me and explained the procedure for the MRI and what they would be looking for. If the MRI was “clean” as in no blood or seepage in my brain, they would do a cerebral angiogram where they would insert a camera into the artery in my groin and snake it up into my brain to get a good look at the aneurysm and then decide if surgery was necessary or just to keep an eye on it. Whatever that means. How do you keep an eye on something in my brain that you can’t see.

Then they did the MRI which was an experience all on its own. First I laid down on the table they would insert in the machine, then put ear plugs in my ears and a bolster under my knees for comfort, covered me with a warm blanket and rolled me to the machine where they put dense but soft foam up against both sides of my head to prevent me from moving it which further dampened my hearing, put a plastic sort of cage over my face, told me not to move my head, and rolled me far enough in so that my head and neck could be viewed. I knew there would be loud thumping and there was that but also all sorts of other percussion sounds. Ten minutes later it was over.

About an hour later the neurologist came in, MRI was clean and I could stay til Monday for the angiogram but if the surgeon had an emergency it might not get done that day or, because both the neurologist and the neurosurgeon were confident that the aneurysm was stable for now, I could go home and schedule it with his office within the next two weeks.

By now I’ve had almost no sleep since Thursday night, I’m uncomfortable, I have a headache, and I’m tired of being poked and prodded so I opted to go home. Sarah came and picked me up and I got home about 6:30, went to bed at 7:30, woke at 9:30 to scarf down two pieces of pizza and take my meds and went back to bed and slept til 7:30 this morning.

And no, the aneurysm was not the cause of any of the weird symptoms or feelings. They couldn’t tell me anything definitive about them but speculated that the pain in my back was probably related to the intense afib episode I was having and perhaps the weird feeling was also related to having been in afib for 65 hours straight even though it had stopped by then.

So yeah, I’ve got a small aneurysm in my brain which is scary as fuck.

Thank you all of you for telling me to get thee to the ER and ramping up my fear even though, as it turns out, I wasn’t having a heart attack. It might never have been discovered otherwise. And I might have lived a very long life with it and never knowing…or not. It’s the ‘or not’ part that now hangs over me. 

I’m trying not to think about it because when I do, well, I just don’t want to go there. When aneurysms blow they are almost always fatal.

Fun times, right?