Covid-19

What concerns me about this illness is mostly Patrick. All this talk about "fragile people" and the ones in "frail health." When a cold goes through our house we suffer a range of symptoms - fever, cough, head and chest congestion... But when Patrick gets a cold he seems to suffer from flu-like symptoms Every. Damn. Time. The common cold can knock Patrick out of the game for days. He gets body aches and fatigue, a cough that makes his head pound, and dizziness. He sleeps all day and complains about lack of energy. He can't go out in the cold without a mouth covering, and by going out I merely mean walking from the house to the truck. So this illness that is spreading across the globe at an alarming rate and affecting compromised individuals - it is our foe. This is the only reason why I am worried.

Ablation Is A Go

So much to say. 1. Patrick will be getting the VT ablation in late May 2. The cardiologist is confidant it will work 3. Says Patrick will be able to go off both VT meds 4. Patrick will go on the transplant list anyway, but at a low priority. This way, if his health declines they will just bump him up the list. 5. Ablation procedure will likely be done in three stages, which is easier on the heart. ... Everything has a "... which is good news..." after it. But it doesn't feel that way. None of this sounds like good news. The ablation doesn't sound like good news. A transplant doesn't sound like good news. His heart being in such poor condition that we have to be going through this doesn't sound like good news. We need your prayers today. We were hoping for different results.

Washington Follow-Up Scheduled

Hello everyone! We haven't had much as far as an update to share with you so we've been pretty quiet. Patrick was still being shocked about every two weeks on the Tikosyn so he started a new medication called Mexiletine. The last time he spoke with his doctors he was told he hadn't been shocked in five weeks. So... good news...? It certainly sounds like good news. It's obvious that Patrick has the emotional energy of a squirrel on Redbull. His physical energy levels are less obvious in their decline, but they are quite a bit lower than what they should be for a 53-year-old man. This is all because of his heart function. A doctor who is NOT a cardiologist but who used to work with heart transplant patients told him that not being shocked in five weeks was a good thing. This doctor told him not to be surprised if the team in Washington want to put off the VT ablasion, and also the transplant. Basically, if this team thinks Patrick can eek out a few more years with this heart they will opt out of any major intervention. Why voluntarily perform a heart transplant, which is an extremely high risk surgery, on someone who can limp along with the heart he already has, possibly for several more years? Risk death, or live with a poor quality of life? The choice seems pretty clear. I guess I haven't updated because I didn't want to. I know how Patrick feels about all this. Lucky for you guys, the more verbose of this couple is the one holding down the fort on this little blog of ours. It's hard to go from, "His heart is dying; let's get this heart transplant ASAP," to, "Meh. He's doing okay." Patrick is a flip flopper and a half, and now his doctors are doing it, too; pulling one over on us - or at least that's how it feels to me sometimes. My brain can't process the changes, and my heart can't take the emotional bombardments inflicted with every check up. He flies down to Seattle on Thursday night and flies back Friday night after his appointment. And before anyone asks - No, he doesn't need a ride. We have all of that figured out (but we appreciate the offers!) I don't know how long after this appointment it will take to get results. We don't even really know what all is going to happen. We heard it was a meeting, and then we heard they are going to do some sort of "mapping" of his heart, and then we heard this will be a full-on evaluation for his heart transplant candidacy. So again, now you know as much as we do! I will update again probably this weekend, even if we don't have any results. I'm sure Patrick will have some experiences to share and some funny stories to tell. Let's hope he doesn't pretend to flat-line so the team of doctors finds him collapsed in a chair, eyes open and mouth wide. He has done that to so many ICD techs at FMH that he has had a couple walk in and ignore the fact that he's laying there, and they just go on to introduce themselves and inform him they fell for it once... I'm not sure U-Dub is ready for Patrick... ❤️😍🤣 ETA: Oh! I forgot to tell you he had been having angina after first starting the Mexiletine. He was told this is actually Forced Angina, a side effect of the medication. The medication actually gives him angina. But recently he has been having the real thing. Today we went for a walk at the Big Dipper and he had angina while walking. But other than that, no new symptoms or anything else to worry about ❤️