Angie & Jim

Another day, another surgeryby Jim

I’m here at Lucile Packard’s Children’s Hospital.  Monday, Angie was at her regular 6 mo. checkup appointment and they were testing her pacemaker and were surprised that her capture voltage has dramatically changed over the last six months.  After a little consulting among the doctors, they asked Angie if she could come back the next day for surgery to replace her ventricular lead.  We were a little surprised by the news.  As it turned out, the surgeon they wanted couldn’t perform the surgery until Thursday, but yesterday they called us and said, “Dr. Maeda has had something come up on Thursday, can you come in tomorrow instead?”  So, we got up at 5 am and drove down to Palo Alto.

It is interesting being back in a children’s hospital.  I’ve already been called Dad by two different nurses.  I like it 🙂  I stopped trying to correct them back at Primary Children’s because I found it kind of endearing.  When we came here to California, they had us start going to the adult hospital for Angie’s regular visits and surgeries.  At first, I was a little sad because we were used to the extra attention and friendliness of a children’s hospital.  After a few years, though, I got used to it.  So it is very different coming back to this environment.

In actuality, Angie’s done very well lately.  In fact, I think she’s set a record for how long she’s gone without a surgery in our married life.  I think her last surgery was in Oct of 2010 when she got her pacer replaced.

Thank you all for your support and love and prayers.  I will keep you posted with updates throughout the day.  If you want to get emails whenever I post, please register and subscribe to the Medical News and Hospital Updates tags to get notified when I post.