So the last time Dr. Garg worked on my heart in October, he told me that the locations of the further known blockages made the prospect of using stents to prop them open untenable. He would just be pushing this nasty arterial plaque out from one location into another at a junction of arteries, possibly causing more damage than it would fix.
So I’m hoping this bypass thing can be put off as long as possible. At least I had until the next stress test in June (09) and then I was hoping he’d tell me another 6 months. This was not to be.
I took the Stress test on June 1. It’s called a nuclear stress test because they inject you with a a radioactive trace dye and then put you on a treadmill. The treadmill starts off slow and then gradually builds to a fast walk up a sharp incline. Your heart is beating at it’s max rate and you feel the pain starting to creep up your left neck to your chin and around your shoulder and down your left arm. I made it all the way to the highest level and am hardly breaking a sweat but I am breathing hard. I can feel the pain.
Next they put you on a table and take pictures of your heart. The nuclear dye will show areas of the heart where the blood flow is diminished. So they have done this twice, once at rest with no strain on the heart and once after heavy stress. The news is not good. I felt it during the test and now it’s confirmed. Dr. Garg is not pleased with what he is seeing.
Friday rolls around and I’m back in the Cath Lab at Fairfax Inova Hospital. I’m becoming an old hand at this and know the drill; I tell the nurses who come to prep me for the catherization procedure. When I had these done before I was not exactly awake. They use a drug called Versed. Versed has the property of letting you be awake but totally unaware of the passage of time. You think you’ve been only laying there for a few minutes and are asking when they’re going to get the ball rolling when in fact they’ve been done for 5 minutes and are just wrapping things up. Cool.
Dr. Garg saw what he feared. The blockage was progressing and could not be stented. He suggested I make an appointment to see the surgeon as soon as possible.
