My mom is having her second angioplasty tomorrow. If you remember back when she was in the hospital in January, she had one of these done about five days after her heart attack. It's basically the same thing that was done before, putting a stent in one of the arteries leading to her heart (there is even a picture of the procedure in a few blogs back. The only thing that is different is that they'll be doing the procedure on the right artery this time. It's an outpatient procedure, so everything should go okay and she should be able to come home the same day unless there are complications. OH I hope there are no complications. Even though it is a generally simple and common procedure, all of you who have kept up with my mom's illnesses over the past year and a half know that her body has been through a lot. Having said that, it seems to be pretty tough to have been through all that!
We saw her cardiologist last week actually to see if she could get cleared for her parathyroid surgery. We got a call from her endocrinologist, saying that she should have it removed right away because her calcium levels were dangerously high. So I called the cardio, called the endo, and was given the impression that one was going to contact the other. Of course no one calls me back as usual and I have to make another call (make that two) a few hours later to remind them about my messages, only to get, "Okay, we'll call you back when we get a hold of his medical assistant. She's not picking up right now." Ugh. Anyway, so the endo's office calls and says we need to see the cardio.
So, when we initially went to see the cardio, it was for clearance for the parathyroid removal. He said he could NOT clear her because, in his own words, she would, "Die on the table." Oh, that made me feel GREAT. He said she would probably bleed to death if she had the parathyroid surgery now, because she needs to be on her blood thinners for at least six months, which she has not.
As for the heart procedure, he said that her right artery still has 70% blockage. The cardio said we were supposed to get her in to do the surgery on her right artery a month after the surgery on her left one (which would have been in Feb), and asked why we never did. We actually were told to do so but we didn't because…next sentence below. Uh. Why don't these people communicate with each other? Well, we saw her cardio nurse around Feb, and she said that it wasn't a concern to have the right artery done, but that she couldn't have the parathyroid surgery for 6 months, and they were going to run a stress test on her heart after that 6 months (at that time it would have been May) to make sure she was okay for the parathyroid surgery, to see if she needed the procedure done on the right artery. SO, am I confusing you yet? Yeah, it's all so confusing because they DON'T COMMUNICATE WITH EACH OTHER!!! Sigh. Unless I am just doing a really bad job of conveying this info to you though my writing.
So anyway, I wanted to give you all an update as to what's been going on. My mom has been doing well otherwise, but we are worried about the high calcium level, because she could start getting sick again like she did in January 2006. We'll just have to wait it out until June or so. Hopefully she will not have to have an emergency surgery if the levels get any higher. I have yet to let her endo know that the cardio did not clear her for the parathyroid surgery. Stuff came up and I totally forgot to call. But shouldn't the doctor be the one to let him know that anyway? BIG SIGH.
Please send us good wishes and keep my mom in your thoughts tomorrow. She is having the surgery around 11:30am PST. I'll let you all know how everything turns out. I'll be spending the night over at my parents' house tomorrow but hopefully I'll still be able to get online. Thanks for reading…it's been so long since I've written. I have no idea if my two or three loyal readers are still out there and will be reading this! If so, thank you! I'm SO nervous and worried and scared guys.
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