Follow up galore!

I know I’ve been pretty quiet on here but a lot of you have been asking how I have been doing so figured I would give a quick update.

As many of you know, I was scheduled to go in the Wednesday before Thanksgiving for a pulmonary angiogram/angioplasty procedure to possibly open up my pulmonary artery stents as my symptoms and test results indicate they are closing. However, I came down with a nasty cold and the procedure had to be postponed. Doctors did not want to risk working on my lungs and around my heart when I was congested and already struggling with my breathing. Makes sense even though I was ready to just get it over and done with!

But, since I was not in the hospital, I had the opportunity to see my family and parents for our final get together over the long Thanskgiving weekend before my parents headed south for the winter! Skyler and some of the cousins catching up…

And due to my heart doctor wanting a pediatric cardiologist assisting with this surgery, scheduling the two doctors together at the same time is apparently very challenging so I’ve been waiting patiently to hear back from them. They finally got a date set for December 15th. This gives me less than two weeks to start…and finish all of my Christmas shopping before my procedure!! Yikes! Thankful for Amazon prime!!!😜

Unfortunately though I have a follow up scheduled over the next week on almost every one of my health issues so needless to say, things are about to get really crazy!

Tomorrow I go to Iowa City for a follow up on my SVC. My interventional radiologist was able to look at my SVC stents from the scans I just did for my heart and lungs so thankfully I will not need to redo any testing. He did think that everything looked okay, however, with all of the symptoms I’ve been dealing with, he still wants to “look at me in person” to do a physical exam and make sure all is well from my SVC standpoint. Praying he is right and that I won’t need to be doing any back to back procedures on all of my stents!

Then next week I will also have a diabetic check up Tuesday, a ct scan and follow up of my back on Wednesday then my procedure for my pulmonary artery stents Thursday in Iowa City followed by another pulmonary appointment with pulmonary functioning tests in Iowa City on Friday…which I will have to reschedule due to already being in the hospital. Did you catch all that?! Have I mentioned that I have a really big calendar?! Haha!

Then that’s pretty much all I have for now!! 😜

I do not expect any complications from my appointment tomorrow dealing with my SVC so I won’t update unless anything “interesting” happens.

As far as my procedure on December 15th, part of me believes that the pulmonary stents just aren’t working as well as we thought they would so my symptoms will just be a part of my daily life. I’m still thinking I could go in and doctors will decide not to risk messing with anything and if that’s the case then I could be home that same night! But, on the other hand…with the way I have been feeling, the other part of me is convinced that my stents are definitely closing and they will have to open them up which means an overnight hospital stay.

Of course my hope is that it is indeed my stents closing, and as frustrating as that would be, at least there would be answers and a reason for my symptoms…and the potential to help me feel better.

Either way, only time will tell and God already has the outcome lined up so no point in stressing over what might not be. And even though I haven’t been feeling well, I’m still enjoying the family time as we slowly begin to get in to the Christmas spirit!

Starting with our family tradition of cutting down our tree!

Asher sure is watching daddy close!