Whew!

Tom's home and pretty soon life will be back to normal. Turns out he had 95% blockage in one vessel--everything else was clear. How strange is that? He says that must be the bacon artery.

He's stented and now has 100% blood flow in that vessel. Yay, Dr. Tracey! Tom should feel a lot better, once he gets past the tiredness from spending five days in the hospital. And how lucky is it that he got out in time to play poker this afternoon? (He's not allowed to lift anything heavier than 10 lbs. for the next week so I told him to limit his winnings. He says the most weight he'll probably carry is bringing the Biggest Loser trophy home. Yeah, they have one.)

And now I can get back to posting about funner things. I haven't even visited my studio for a week. Probably covered in cobwebs by now. Maybe I'll dig my way through this afternoon.

Ta, y'all. And thanks for all your good wishes.

Update

Things have been all scrambled up here in our world. Turns out Tom didn't have heart attacks when we feared he did; that was a condition called atrial fibrillation, an abnormal heart rhythm. But the a-fib became so bad during his stress test--treadmill, not chemically induced--that he actually had a small heart attack. That's what the doc calls it: a small attack, determined by the level of enzymes found in his blood. I can tell you this: his small heart attack scared the peewaddling out of me.

He's been in a hospital in Austin since Thursday. Tomorrow they'll do an angiogram to determine the level of damage and stent if necessary. (Beyond that, my mind refuses to go.) Is it serendipity or coincidence or something scarier that tomorrow's the seventeenth anniversary of his quad bypass?

I'm driving into Austin every day. They say I could stay in his room and not have to drive back and forth, but I gotta come home for Max. My poor cat hasn't been outside in quite a while. I get home, I feed him, I feed me, next thing you know it's dark. I'm gonna try to take him out for a little while before I leave this morning.

The house seems so foreign without Tom.

Back Again

It's been awhile, hasn't it? Funny how not posting here makes me feel guilty and the longer I don't the harder it becomes to do. But here I am, trying.

A week ago last Sunday, I think Tom had a heart attack. Looks awful writing it down, but not as bad as the reality. And what's almost as bad is the uncertainty. I think.... Maybe not.... But what if....

By the time the paramedics came, he seemed fine. Still we took him to the ER and they did a number of tests, none of which showed the markers left by heart attacks. The next day, we contacted our cardio guy who scheduled a number of tests. And no it's not Dr. Tracey's fault we're only doing the stress test today. We really had become complacent--there was no evidence of a heart attack either syptomatically or in the tests they ran--so since it didn't fit into his schedule, Tom postponed it. Then we heard anecdotal information about silent heart attacks, and I looked it up on the web. They don't feel like heart attacks, which is why they're called silent, and they don't always leave markers. Now we're worried.

This afternoon he has the stress test. For the first time ever they're chemically inducing it. I don't want to go where that leads: he's always walked the treadmill, even after his quad bypass seventeen years ago. (Funny, that anniversary is next Monday.)

There'll be another test next Monday, and then he sees the doc on Thursday.

When I started this, I hadn't intended to go into so much detail. I haven't deserted y'all, just taking a hiatus until we get in a better place, which I'm hoping will be very soon.

Keep your fingers crossed, y'all. And a prayer or two wouldn't be taken amiss.

Ta.