STAY HEART-HEALTHY AND BREATHE EASY

Ever since landing in Houston, each day has been busier, by far, than expected.  Why?
I’d thought to see my doctors, have a Covid test, chest X-ray, labs and rest.
Much to our surprise, my doctors had additional plans in store for me.

My thoracic surgeon decided to schedule a study of my lungs to check out air intake and output, which I passed—thank goodness ...

My cardiac surgeon decided to schedule an appointment with a cardiologist followed by a heart catheterization, and along with the study of my lungs, getting each of these time consuming appointments scheduled within a two day window proved quite a feat.

The reason for the heart cath was twofold:
To see if an intricate network of vessels is feeding the tumor.
(An intricate network of vessels feeding the tumor was not seen.)
To check out my major vessels—all look good with one exception
The inferior pulmonary vein (leading into my heart’s right auricle from my right lung) is compromised by the tumor.  As this has shown to be true in past studies, additional reason for concern did not emerge—and thank goodness for that!

Yet another feat?  This medical campus (made up of several mega buildings connected by indoor walkways on several levels) covers six city blocks, which is why Will was seen holding a map while wheeling me from one set of elevators to another as we made our way through a labyrinth of walkways in hopes of getting from one appointment to the next (several of which were back to back) in a timely manner.

Thank goodness, David dropped us off, each morning, and picked us up, at the end of each day, because, as you can imagine, Will was too bushed to maneuver through construction zones on our way back to the air bnb—especially yesterday, as my first appointment was at 9:30 am, and I was not released from the recovery room following the heart catheterization, until 7pm.  Why was that?  Because the cardiologist, making certain that I’d not have a bleed at the site where the catheter had been inserted, decided to keep me in recovery for four hours rather than the usual three.

And as that, my friends, brings us up-to-date—please

Stay well

Stay masked

Stay heart-healthy—breathe easy by creating love-ins
And—Vote blue

🙋🏻‍♀️❤️🌈🌻Annie