Angie & Jim

Follow-upby Jim

We just got back from the hospital and Angie’s follow-up appointment.  I dropped her off and she went in to get her labs drawn and chest x-ray.  After that, we went upstairs to see the doctor.  They started with vitals and an EKG.  The EKG was a little hard to read because Angie’s heart rate was a little high, so the doctor wanted Angie to go have her pacemaker interrogated at the children’s hospital across the street.  They showed us the x-ray and her lungs look much better.  The fluid is nearly all gone, thanks to the increased diuretic Angie has been on.  Because the image looked so good, they decided to dial down her dosage, which we’re grateful for.  Before we left, Dr. Lui talked to us about a new drug he’d like to put Angie on.  It is a vasodialator that should help with her pulmonary pressure.  That will (hopefully) decrease the fluid build-up and a nice side effect is increased oxygen saturation levels.  There are risks, as with any medication, so we went over those.  He’s very hopeful that this drug will really help Angie get back to normal.

After our chat, we walked over to Lucile Packard’s and did the interrogation.  Being a children’s hospital, the pacemaker interrogator has a little turtle covering.  It’s very cute.  We were thrilled to find out that Angie is not in arrhythmia!  Hooray!  She did have an episode of arrhythmia a few days ago, but it lasted only 11 seconds, so it didn’t worry them too much.  If it keeps recurring, I’m sure it will worry them, but for today, she’s in great shape.  With that great news, they bid us goodbye and let us go to fight commuter traffic on our way home.

We are also very excited to hear that my sister-in-law, Kelly, is cancer-free!  She went in for surgery last week and today we learned that the doctors found no trace of cancer in her body.  We’re so happy for you, Kelly!

We were so excited about the news of the day that we decided to celebrate by going to Angie’s favorite restaurant in Livermore, which is right of the freeway on the way home.  Thank you all for your love, support, prayers, good thoughts, words of encouragement, and everything you’ve done to help us over the last few months.  We couldn’t have gotten through without you!