Friday, December 23, 2005
Why I haven't posted
Last weekend I suffered chest pains and wound up having my second angiogram, a process where a surgeon inserts a catheter into an artery in the groin and uses it to explore the heart with contrast dye and X-ray video. My first such procedure was five years ago. The surgeon then performed a balloon angioplasty to open up some blockages and implanted three devices called stents to hold those areas open in one of the arteries supplying blood to my heart muscle.
I now have eight stents, which might sound bad until you learn more about the advances being made almost daily in the field of coronary intervention; this certainly beats open-heart bypass surgery. I walked out of the hospital the next day and went to lunch with my wife. I have had few if any side-effects, other than some anxiety and fatigue plus 2-3 days of low grade fever which is now gone. Even the incision site is pain free, a vast improvement over last time.
The stents are coated with a drug which improves the chances of a successful outcome, an innovation which was still experimental when I had my first angioplasty. I am lucky to live in San Diego, where the Scripps Hospital Cardiac Catheterization Lab is one of the busiest in southern California. I'm doubly lucky that my insurer, Kaiser-Permanente has a relationship with Scripps that results in their policyholders getting some of the finest heart care available anywhere.
The same doctor who did my first procedure performed this one. He was visibly elated to report to me that his earlier work had weathered the five years with no problems and that there were no further issues to be addressed. This was by no means a certain outcome with the non drug coated stents he used last time.
I still have not had an in-depth interview to discuss the finer details with my health care providers, but will be doing so in the coming days and weeks.
Over the next week or two I'll be adding to the story and updating the knowledge base. Suffice to say that I'm feeling much better and look forward to posting more about this almost miraculous process, which approaches Star Trek medicine.
I now have eight stents, which might sound bad until you learn more about the advances being made almost daily in the field of coronary intervention; this certainly beats open-heart bypass surgery. I walked out of the hospital the next day and went to lunch with my wife. I have had few if any side-effects, other than some anxiety and fatigue plus 2-3 days of low grade fever which is now gone. Even the incision site is pain free, a vast improvement over last time.
The stents are coated with a drug which improves the chances of a successful outcome, an innovation which was still experimental when I had my first angioplasty. I am lucky to live in San Diego, where the Scripps Hospital Cardiac Catheterization Lab is one of the busiest in southern California. I'm doubly lucky that my insurer, Kaiser-Permanente has a relationship with Scripps that results in their policyholders getting some of the finest heart care available anywhere.
The same doctor who did my first procedure performed this one. He was visibly elated to report to me that his earlier work had weathered the five years with no problems and that there were no further issues to be addressed. This was by no means a certain outcome with the non drug coated stents he used last time.
I still have not had an in-depth interview to discuss the finer details with my health care providers, but will be doing so in the coming days and weeks.
Over the next week or two I'll be adding to the story and updating the knowledge base. Suffice to say that I'm feeling much better and look forward to posting more about this almost miraculous process, which approaches Star Trek medicine.
