First Cardiology appointment

 

Usually, when I talk about cardiology appointments, It’s in reference to my daughter.  She has hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), with multiple open heart procedures as well as catheterizations and other procedures under her belt.  This time the cardiology appointment in question is mine.  I was originally supposed to see a cardiologist much sooner than this last week, but they had scheduling issues, and because I said I was doing ok, more time than what is normal for new heart attack patients passed before I could get in.

The appointment itself went fine.  After getting the usual vital statistics, I was brought into a small room (this is a very large practice so there are a lot of patients and doctors involved).  The nurse got my list of medications, asked a few questions about my overall condition, verified my medications (I brought them in rather than try to remember each one), and then went to get the doctor.  The doctor came in and went through the history of what happened (with the heart attack, tests, and hospitalization) and how I have been since then. 

One question was about my medications.  In the hospital I had originally been on a vasodilator (opening of blood vessels) but was taken off because I was dizzy.  Since then, I continued to have dizziness issues and actually needed to reduced the dose of the beta blocker (helps keep the pulse rate down and increases efficiency of the heart), so we decided to go back on the vasodilator (brand name Imdur).  Starting with half dose for four days and then go to full dose as long as I can tolerate it.

The next point of discussion was what I had and hadn’t had done for tests.  Other than the ekgs, angiogram, and blood tests immediately related to the heart attack, I hadn’t had any other tests done.  So, now I get my blood drawn for tests related to medication and cholesterol in the next few weeks (not sure when that will be – question for this week), and I go in for an echocardiogram this next week.  Once those are done, I get to sit down with the cardiologist and discuss the results.  From there, I’ll continue seeing the cardiologist fairly frequently until I prove to be stable.

This was just another reminder that something significant happened to me.  There are times I feel like it was minor and insignificant, so maybe I need the reminders to help keep things in perspective.