This past week has flown by without any posts from me. I'll try to catch folks up.
First, let me lift up in prayer my seminary friend Mibi for her health issues. My hat is off to her to even be in seminary with the autoimmune challenges she has, let alone to excel as she does. Please join me in prayer for her.
Also, another friend has requested prayers for a tough economic situation she finds herself in. Prayers ascending, Sister!
I spent a fair amount of time last week with my new primary care doctor (PCM) and my cardiologist. My new PCM noted some lab work from five years ago that needed attention but was overlooked--she and my cardiologist agree that it could be the reason I have the cardiac problems I have now. I had that particular blood work redrawn and others as well and am awaiting the results. Meanwhile, my cardiologist adjusted my medications again and so I was feeling rather yucky and apathetic for a few days. Over the weekend my energy started coming back and I feel almost normal now. I'm thinking that I have a new normal to which I need to adjust, but that's ok.
Sunday was our church annual meeting. I think our parish sent a clear message for change in the vestry--I was elected as well as two other very new members. Two long time members who both work hard for our parish were not elected, and another long time member was not elected to his own term, but to fill a vacancy that was left due to another's resignation. One of our members is a very distinguished retired priest from Delaware for whom I have enormous respect and affection--he just said, "This was a very interesting election!"
I am humbled by the trust placed in my judgment by our parish. Immediately I have a ton of work to do as within the next two weeks we plan to elect a new rector. Historically rectors tend to stay in our parish for many years (DAC+ was there for 19), so this is a huge responsibility. I have a large sheath of papers to go through this morning, and there will be a conference call in which I will participate along with the other new vestry members to get to know the two gentlemen. I've met them both. I wish it was ethical to post their names and get feedback on them to help. One comes from a Midwestern parish that was decimated by the purity folks a few years back. He would like to get closer to his home state. One has been a "firefighter" for his bishop and would like some stability. Both are very qualified and would serve our parish well, from what the search committee and the other vestry members say. But, they are very different men.
So I'll look through the materials, participate in the conference calls, and see what I think. I know how I'm leaning right now, but I do not have the full story. The vestry has set up very good (IMHO) ground rules for how to reach the common decsion--by consensus, although not by unanimity. And a few of us are headed to see one of them in action this coming weekend.
I wish our annual meeting would have taken place a bit later, but our church bylaws say it has to be in January. The reason the former vestry could not elect was that the bishop was not able to see one of them on his visit to South Dakota. It really doesn't seem fair. I'm sure there will be much discusion.
Like I always say, Stay tuned. Please pray for us that we will be open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in this momentous decision.
Showing posts with label cardiac monitor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cardiac monitor. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Friday, November 30, 2007
My new best friend
Is my cardiac event monitor. It will tell things that some folks, like Taciturn, do not think is possible for me.
That is a terribly structured sentence, but oh well. Sometimes it is helpful to have your spouse be a physician. Other times, like now, it isn't. He (#1) went to medical school in the 1980's, when views on women's heart disease were much more patriarchal than now. Secondly, he is a pediatrician and we have been in situations before in which I, the certified adult critical care nurse, was much more knowledgeable concerning adult conditions than he was and stepped up to take charge because he didn't know what to do. I wouldn't know what to do if the situation concerned a child, so there you have it. Due to my experiences while working all those years in the ICU, I do not cut doctors much slack at all. I do not know everything they know, but I know they don't know everything.
I say that since he now thinks, since my stress test was negative, that all of this is in my head and I'm using this to get out of doing stuff. That is what physicians were taught in the 1980's. He even said that after I told him what follows.
As I was fitted with the monitor yesterday, I conveniently had chest pain while a test strip was run and transmitted over the phone (to demonstrate to me how to do it), and I noted several non conducted P waves. That means that somehow the electrical transmission from the atria (upper chambers) is not being transmitted to the ventricles, which pump the blood to the rest of the body. The transmission is blocked somehow. I said to the nurse, "Gracious! Do you see what I see?" She said, "Sure do!" "No wonder I'm dizzy and having chest pain!" I said.
Now there are several different types of heart block, some benign, some not. As an athlete, I'm more prone to a type of heart block called Wenckebach, in which the time for the electrical transmission from the atria to the ventricles gets longer and longer until a transmission to the ventricles is dropped altogether. But usually that is without symptoms, or very minor ones. In my case, I've been wiped out for a few weeks before this started and I'm dizzy and having pain more often than not. I've pressed my event monitor 4 times in the last 22 hours. I could have pressed it much more. I would have loved to have run off a strip and "marched out" (measured the intervals) the P waves to see if it was Wenckebach or another block.
To complicate matters, I'm changing health care providers. My current one is a PA; as much as I wish to support alternative health providers I need someone who can deal with all of my subtle and not so subtle health issues. This came to a head when she refused to change my current arrhythmia meds. So I'm headed to a female MD, as soon as my PPO gets the paperwork processed. I told T that I cannot continue in this state, constantly in pain and dizzy (I'm afraid to drive), for another month or so until I can get an appointment with her. Hopefully whoever monitors my events will see something and step on it to change my meds or do whatever I need done.
And by the way, the retreat was cancelled. Turned out so many folks cancelled due to illness, other obligations, etc that only two were going to attend. Plus, it is going to snow out there. I have to write out a report to email to the others about some research I did, which I will do later today. I'm going to lay down now.
That is a terribly structured sentence, but oh well. Sometimes it is helpful to have your spouse be a physician. Other times, like now, it isn't. He (#1) went to medical school in the 1980's, when views on women's heart disease were much more patriarchal than now. Secondly, he is a pediatrician and we have been in situations before in which I, the certified adult critical care nurse, was much more knowledgeable concerning adult conditions than he was and stepped up to take charge because he didn't know what to do. I wouldn't know what to do if the situation concerned a child, so there you have it. Due to my experiences while working all those years in the ICU, I do not cut doctors much slack at all. I do not know everything they know, but I know they don't know everything.
I say that since he now thinks, since my stress test was negative, that all of this is in my head and I'm using this to get out of doing stuff. That is what physicians were taught in the 1980's. He even said that after I told him what follows.
As I was fitted with the monitor yesterday, I conveniently had chest pain while a test strip was run and transmitted over the phone (to demonstrate to me how to do it), and I noted several non conducted P waves. That means that somehow the electrical transmission from the atria (upper chambers) is not being transmitted to the ventricles, which pump the blood to the rest of the body. The transmission is blocked somehow. I said to the nurse, "Gracious! Do you see what I see?" She said, "Sure do!" "No wonder I'm dizzy and having chest pain!" I said.
Now there are several different types of heart block, some benign, some not. As an athlete, I'm more prone to a type of heart block called Wenckebach, in which the time for the electrical transmission from the atria to the ventricles gets longer and longer until a transmission to the ventricles is dropped altogether. But usually that is without symptoms, or very minor ones. In my case, I've been wiped out for a few weeks before this started and I'm dizzy and having pain more often than not. I've pressed my event monitor 4 times in the last 22 hours. I could have pressed it much more. I would have loved to have run off a strip and "marched out" (measured the intervals) the P waves to see if it was Wenckebach or another block.
To complicate matters, I'm changing health care providers. My current one is a PA; as much as I wish to support alternative health providers I need someone who can deal with all of my subtle and not so subtle health issues. This came to a head when she refused to change my current arrhythmia meds. So I'm headed to a female MD, as soon as my PPO gets the paperwork processed. I told T that I cannot continue in this state, constantly in pain and dizzy (I'm afraid to drive), for another month or so until I can get an appointment with her. Hopefully whoever monitors my events will see something and step on it to change my meds or do whatever I need done.
And by the way, the retreat was cancelled. Turned out so many folks cancelled due to illness, other obligations, etc that only two were going to attend. Plus, it is going to snow out there. I have to write out a report to email to the others about some research I did, which I will do later today. I'm going to lay down now.
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