December 29th was the 6 month anniversary of my open heart surgery. January 6th was the 6 month anniversary of my pacemaker installation.
Yesterday was an exciting day. I had my first appointment over the phone with the pacemaker clinic. Crazy stuff. I also had to get my blood drawn for my bi-monthly INR test to make sure my blood is thin enough to get through the new valve without clotting and thick enough that I don’t bleed to death from a paper cut.
My friend Lise came along to document the procedure. And, as it turns out blogged about that morning too:
(I also need to let my good friends, who care about these things, know that after seeing these pictures I ran right out and got a haircut. haircut.jpg It’s good - not as good as Heather does, of course, but definitely better.)
The lab I go to is on the top floor of a hospital that is in a big old colonial building in the center. We should have taken a picture of the beautiful terrace that is outside her lab. Oh well.
This is the nice señora who sticks a very long needle into my arm every 2-3 weeks and who is very patient with me and my Spanish.
It doesn’t actually hurt that much, it is just the anticipation, sometimes she has to wiggle the needle around to find the vein.
Today was good day though, she hit it right away. Just look at that blood rushing into the needle.
Then she writes down my info in a little spiral notebook on her cluttered workbench and I pay her about 11 dollars, (110 pesos.) She does the test and in the afternoon I get my results in a legal sized envelope in the front lobby of the hospital and take them to a copy place to FAX them to my anticoagulation nurse at Kaiser, who then emails me my coumadin instructions. It’s a great system.
At noon it was time for my pacemaker test. The telephone appointment was scheduled before we left Portland. Someone from the pacemaker clinic called me at the appointed time and I had my little machine ready.
I had little wristbands connecting me to the machine, then I put the handset onto the machine and she got the signal from my pacemaker, all the way up there in Portland, Oregon USA.
Then I had to put this big strong magnet right over the pacemaker - I wasn’t so crazy about that. It flips a switch in the pacemaker to get another reading. I don’t totally understand, (I think they explained it to me in Portland, but I don’t remember.) My heart definitely felt different and I was glad to have it done with. She said it was a clear signal though, and that my numbers were good, so that’s good I suppose. Then we made another appointment for four months from now, hung up and it was done.
Cheese god, my hair was bad!!
