6 posts tagged “heart”

MUGA Scan today

Jan 10, 2008
5 comments

I had a MUGA scan today, which is a (painless) procedure to determine (with a big, costly machine) how effectively your heart pumps. At least that is what they used it for with me.

MUGA Scan machine

And the preliminary answer, anyhow, is a score (the ejection fraction, how much of the blood in your heart gets pumped out and around your body on each compression) of 39%. That sounds low, and it is low. Normal is supposed to be at least 55%. Perhaps up to 70%

But it is never 100%, so 39% isn't as bad as it might seem. And it actually is better than the score I got on June 23, 2006, which was 35%. Now it has marginally improved! That was a surprise!

When your ejection fraction is low, when your heart is pumping poorly, you become weak (it is difficult to exert yourself), and you may get edema (a congestion of fluid in the body, including lungs).

Anyhow, this result is probably testimony to the effectiveness of contemporary heart medications. It pleases me.

Plus, the nurse or technical was nice, and I got a good cheap breakfast in the cafeteria. It used to be that I hated going to the hospital, because of my sad experience there with Barbara, but now it seems almost comforting. Certainly I know my way around there better than I used to. And the food definitely is a bargain!

Poetry Makes No Sense

Jan 6, 2008
2 comments

Poetry makes no sense
And need not
Not to the mind
Nor even the heart
But only the Soul

That's enough!

DRB - 1/7/08 (revised)

71 years

Jan 4, 2008
1 comment

I plugged data from my cardiologist into a calculator based on the Seattle Heart Failure Model, which I found on the web, and got an answer to a question I had wondered about: what is my "life expectancy?" The answer, taking into account my age (65) and other conditions and various medications I'm using, is 6.5 more years.

That would make me 71 when the warranty runs out. And in fact, my dad, and my wife's first husband, both passed away when they were 71 years old.

I don't think that is so short as to be "unfair." It is long enough to have had a good run at things! Actually, I feel fairly pleased. It is a LOT better than just one year!

I saw the cardiologist today

Jan 3, 2008
3 comments

I saw the cardiologist today, and got a fairly good report. Certainly a whole lot better than back in 2003, when my lungs were so full of fluid because of heart failure that I could not breathe, could not lie down flat. Coughed almost all the time, certainly when speaking. I was on the couch a lot of the time, with my head and my feet raised. And then I slept in a Lazy Boy chair, but later raised up the front end of the bed. Still use two pills, although the bed is flat on the floor now.

"Heart Failure" means that your heart "fails" to pump enough blood, to pump strongly enough. That weakness has a number of unfortunate consequences, which perhaps I will list later. Might add more to this entry.

Anyhow, this appointment (I go roughly every six months) was fairly satisfactory. It is so wonderful to have a doctor that is attentive, that listens to you and makes an honest effort to explain. They are not all that way!

When I was first diagnosed, I was informed that 50% of cases pass away in five years. The mortality rate is as bad or worse than many types of cancer! But, for me, it has been very nearly five years already. So I guess I am in the lucky upper half!

Lots of medications have helped with that.

And, perhaps, clean living? ;)

Taken by Surprise! David 2.0

Jan 3, 2008
7 comments

It is so strange to have a real life again, a second life as it were. The first one ended when my wife of 35 years, Barbara Ann Barlow, passed away following a brief but powerful illness on January 9, 2003, at only age 60.

T-cell lymphoma. She was sick for a two-month period, but wasn't diagnosed until Christmas. It was all awful!

But now I find that, after nearly five years, I do have a whole new life--David 2.0, as it were.

Connie and Me

And I have a wonderful new wife, too--Connie, a very fine woman--like Barbara in some significant respects (a public school teacher, Catholic, caring, kind-spirited) but different in others (ethnicity, region of origin). We were married in in mid-September 2007, three months ago.

We don't get along perfectly, all of the time. Do two people who are retired and thus together 24/7, ever do? Especially a newer couple? I doubt it!

But we are both so much better off together than we would be separately. We now each have "a person" as she calls it, a "witness" to our lives.

We can eat together; meals by yourself are lonely, and Connie would not cook only for herself, although is glad to cook for her and me. We travel together, that I think is our greatest pleasure. And we are looking forward to several new trips in 2008.

Our two separated lives are knitting together, becoming one. One!

Also, even though I am officially and formally retired, I do have some "jobs" again, too--or at least some activities.

Things to do, things that keep me pretty busy. Services as a volunteer and so forth. Connie has a pretty active social life, and has two daughters living in the Chicago area also.

Anyhow, to me, it is, wholly astonishing! Back in the Dark Days, of 2003 and even in 2004, I would never have thought it possible. My health was terrible, and my mood was worse. My heart was broken, figuratively and literally. I needed a lot of medical care, and had some hospitalizations. All pretty bad.

Better now! David 2.0.

This blog is providing a record mostly of this new life, which I am very relieved to have!

Personal Prognosis for 2008

Dec 29, 2007
8 comments

It is impossible for me to think about the future, something that the new year raises, without also thinking about my own life expectancy. For people who have heart failure (a heart weakened so that it doesn't pump enough blood), as I do, half are dead in five years, and 70% in ten years. That is from the date of diagnosis, which for me was early 2003.

ChronicHeartFailure

Now, for me, it has been nearly five years, and I am indeed still here. Guess I made it to the upper, better half! Thanks to daily doses of good pills, and a very helpful physician. But how much time is really left, and how active will I be able to be in that period?

For sure, my rock climbing days are over. So is hiking above tree-line.

A bit over a year ago, I had a tough time just breathing in Santa Fe, which is at a higher elevation than Chicago but still fairly moderate (about 7,000 feet). However, a nurse told us that some people, visiting flatlanders from say, Ohio, do need bottled oxygen.

So there goes the plan to climb Everest, too!

Life expectancy also figures in to finances: how much money gets spent, and how fast?

National Geographic sponsors a trip around the world by private jet, with an informed lecturer and fascinating stops. But it is expensive! $50,000 I believe. What if I need that money for a nursing home one day?

How to decide what to do?

Definitely I do expect to make it through 2008--although obviously, sometimes things don't turn out that way. But how many years is realistic?

Those estimations are much on my mind.

This life expectancy calculator thinks I will might make it to 90!

But it doesn't know about the heart failure . . . .