Thursday, September 28, 2006  Update 19,   LAST   NEXT                           

Here we go again. This past Tuesday (Sept 26) I went to the BMT Clinic for several tests. I had 19 (!) vials of blood drawn for various tests, chest X-Rays, a Bone Marrow Aspirate Test and an echocardiogram. I'll be seeing Dr Bahlis next Tuesday to go over the results. I'm expecting to be 'discharged' from the BMT soon after that and will be having occasional individual attention with a cardiologist (Dr Kryski), Dr Bahlis at the TBCC, the Anticoagulation Clinic at the Foothills Hospital and the Cardiac Function Clinic at the Peter Lougheed Centre. All this stuff, as you can see, is related to cardiac issues as it's the area most affected by the Amyloidosis. Statistically there's only a 20-25% chance that the heart will improve over time. Apparently it will take two years or so to really be able to tell. Not very good odds. I have heard about another possible option. More on that later. Dr Kryski has better knowledge of the ins and outs of Amyloidosis than Dr Connelly which is one reason for the switch.

Sinus (normal) rhythm appears to have been established and my heart is typically pumping around the 72 BPM range ever since the Cardioversion. No fibrillation whatsoever. Yay! And my legs/ankles/feet have shown perceptible reduction of the edema. Slow, but sure.

During the time before all these treatments, etc, I was trying to speculate as to how life would be, post-op. I thought that I would be a lot more 'needy', as it were. That fact is, I'm doing nearly everything I had been doing before I 'got sick'. However, I'm doing it a lot slower and I'm feeling pretty well worn out by the end of most days. Fortunately, the immune system appears to be holding its own as I haven't had any infections or colds, etc. Thank God, seriously. My nose does run a lot during the course of the day but that's more of a nuisance than anything.

I'm expecting that my CVC line will be removed pretty soon as it appears things are generally fairly stable and I won't be needing to have the weekly bloodwork done. I've had that thing for over 4 months now. It'll feel weird without it!

The peach fuzz keeps coming on my head and face. My whiskers are so soft that the way my face feels and the way it appears in the mirror are two totally different things! Which reminds me, I guess I ought to shave and get this thing up on the web.

'til next time,

Bobby

PS. About four months or so ago I won a pair of tickets on CKUA for the Deepak Chopra presentation which will be this Saturday. Lisa and I are looking forward to that!