Wish me luck...
In about 6 hours I go in to the hospital for the Cronic Total Occlusion Stent installation in the left main artery which is known as the Widow Maker Artery. They tried to put stents in back 2 or 3 weeks ago here in Fayetteville, GA but they were not set up to install the stent in the main artery which they found when they got in there. So they had to stop and make reservations for me at the main hospital in Atlanta. They have a back up team there that can do open heart surgery if the stent installation goes bad. The doctor said it is 100 percent blocked. I asked how on earth can it be totally blocked and I've not bit the dust yet? He said my heart has found a way to reroute the blood in my heart that's keeping me alive. It don't flow as good as the main artery but it works for a while. He said I haven't had a heart attack which is a plus and that he believes the stent will do the job. Having to wait a couple of weeks to get this procedure done has been a killer for me. It's hard to sleep knowing your old heart is about ready to call it quits. My blood pressure has been all over the place these past couple of weeks.
With the way my luck has been running the past year and a half I expect the worse. My wife died about 5 weeks ago from cancer, my oldest son's wife has stage 4 brain cancer and is continuing chemo and he can't be here with me and my youngest son's wife is battling an illness that won't let her raise her arms above her waist so he can't be here plus he's over 3,000 miles away and has already spent thousands of bucks in air line tickets visiting his mom before she passed away.
So I'm here on my own. My mom is 91 years old and can't come to be with me and I wouldn't want her to even if she could. My sister is taking care of my mom so she can't come and the rest of my family has already kicked the bucket years ago. It's a real pain in the rear getting old.
I've had to call a cab to pick me up at 4:00AM this morning to get me to the hospital. I could drive myself but they won't let me leave the hospital without someone to drive me and if I were to just leave and have a wreck and kill somebody from being on drugs and not following hospital orders I really would be in a world of hurt. So I'll just call a cab. I checked out Uber and there is no way to talk to someone and I live out in the county so there might be a car available or there may not and without talking to someone in person I'm not taking a chance. The cab driver has already called to confirm my ride this morning and gave me his phone number. He also said he would call again before he arrives.
Oh well, I'll probably not make it through the procedure anyway so this stuff won't be high on my list of giving a crap about.
I've spent several hours today writing notes for my youngest son to know where and how to operate things here at the house if I don't make it back.
If'n you all don't hear from me again it's been nice hanging out with you here on the forum. You all have been very supportive during June's year and a half battle with cancer before she died. She and I both appreciated all the prayers and well wishes she received during that terrible time.
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Glad to hear you are home and healing.
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Smitty you may want to use door dash or another service and have some good food delivered for a few days. Take it easy and take care of yourself, eat some good food, rest, heal.
It's a relief to know you are doing okay. Give yourself time, you will feel better.
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Prayers for a safe return.
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Good to hear . God had this handled .
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You made it through.......as promised.....
that's good news
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Great news, we look forward to hearing more from you.
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Good New. Now just do what the doctors ordered.
I am not good at following doctors orders so I know where you are coming from.
i always try to do more before I am supposed to and I have paid the price for it. Now as I am getting older I find I better follow doctors orders because things take longer to get back to normal.
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@...: 30629125612443/comments/
You made it! Thanks for the update!
You should have just called a plumber, right? 😁
Rest easy. We're all pulling for you.
Plumbers and pipe fitters are in the union in this area. It was a lot cheaper to use a doctor. 😁
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Good news. You'll probably feel better after a good night's sleep.
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jimdeere: 30629125612443/comments/30629182778907
Good news. You'll probably feel better after a good night's sleep.
You are right about that. I feel like a different person today compared to last night. Last night I felt like I had wasted my time going through the medical procedure. I was really bummed out and disappointed and then I slept about 9 hours and had a good breakfast and now I actually feel like living again.
Looks like the good Lord gave me another chance and I sure do appreciate you guys praying for me. I know I can't push it too hard and I need to take it easy for a while but dang it feels good to be back amongst the living.
If only June could have been so lucky things would be near perfect now.
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Good deal. Now go out to the shop and put a reel together.
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Great to hear and sounds good. Go easy and give it time and you will feel a lot better shortly.
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Get better my friend...
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The doctor gave me these before and after images on what they call a "Chronic Total Occlusion Stent". He shows the 100% blockage in this first image above between the arrows. There's no blood flowing through there at all.
This next image shows the same area and the artery is wide open and blood flowing like it's supposed to.
I read the reviews and history on this guy before I went and he's a brilliant doctor. I don't see how on earth he can clean that crap up in the artery without cutting you open and replacing the bad section of artery. Looks like the pieces of debris that he was roto-rooting would be flying around in there like garbage in a sewer pipe and then clogging up and lodging in the brain?
It's no wonder it's so expensive. The equipment they were using looked like it came from a sci-fyi movie.
He said not many hospitals have the means to do this procedure on the arteries that he was working on is the reason they sent me from the hospital in Fayetteville, GA to the Piedmont hospital in Atlanta. He said other hospitals that do this type of procedure have around a 60% success rate. He said he has over a 90% success rate. He's a brilliant guy that's also down to earth and I could tell he was really proud of his work as he should be.
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Glad to see he got things cleaned out and working like new.
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When I had my cardiac event ,my second most important artery looked like that also . Doctor roto rooted me out and am at 100% ..Amazing what they can do .
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Amazing
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