A New Low

Today was our annual trek to Detroit to get Mira's semi-annual echo and follow up with her pulmonary hypertension specialist.  For once, I wasn't feeling nervous and waiting for the other shoe to drop.  On the way there, I was sure it would be a regular visit, and we would hear the same thing--everything is stable.  No change.  When we got there, they wanted her to have an EKG in addition to her echo.  No biggy,  She's had that before.  After the wires were in place, the tech printed the page. She looked at it strangely and printed another one.  Then she did it again.  I was a little concerned at that point, but not too much.  They took her to the echo room and then said that they wanted Mira to do a 6-minute walk test after the echo.  Something new, but not wholly unexpected.  My memory told me it thought we had talked about this last year.

The echo went well, and Mira did amazing sitting on the bed by herself, not needing to hold anyone's hand.  The echo tech left and was soon replaced by one of the cardiology big wigs, Dr. H., who had helped care for Patrick.  He introduced himself (we're guessing he didn't remember us, which isn't terribly surprising), he took a few pictures, and then left again.  By this time, I was starting to get concerned.  We were placed in a room and waited for her regular doc.  When he arrived, the news was actually good.  Better than good.

The echo issue was really a non-issue.  They noticed that she has a right aortic arch instead of a left aortic arch.  We're pretty sure we already knew that from when Mira had her CT scan with contrast at 6 months.  But, even if this is new information, it just means Mira is more rare--only .01% of the population has it.  It doesn't really cause any problems, so it was just a notation for the record.  But, the good news--the best news, really--is that Mira's pressures didn't just remain stable.  They decreased!!!  Mira's arterial pressures had been running in the 50% range (for normal healthy people, it should be around 20%) since her surgery at age 1.  Today, Mira's pressures were running in the 40-45% range.  Although not a huge change, it is downward movement, and after four years of no movement, I wasn't sure it would ever go down, so this was amazing news!

She passed her six-minute walking test, and we go back to her local cardiologist in six months.  The takeaway--just keep doing what we're doing.  Finally some good news.  I SOOO needed this.  Thank goodness that Mira's pressures have reach a new low!

Better Safe...

Sometime last year, I started having heart palpitations--often skipped beats with an extra heavy "catch-up" beat.  I went to the doctor, he did an EKG which looked normal, and I got bloodwork done.  We discovered my vitamin D was low, so we increased it with mega supplements.  My D levels are still lower than they should be, but the incidence of the palpitations has decreased significantly, so I considered the issue behind me.  All good.

Then, sometime last month, I started noticing that I was having chest pain when I lay down at night to go to bed.  Since it didn't happen every night or last too terribly long, I assumed it was heartburn--even though it didn't feel like the heartburn I had when I was pregnant.

With my 40th birthday on the horizon, wanting to lose some weight, and knowing that physical activity can help release pent-up emotions, I got a membership to our local wellness center and began working out.  I began to feel nauseous during one of the classes I was taking, so I stopped doing those and went to just doing the elliptical.  Well, last week, I began having chest pain during my workout that didn't go away until I was done working out.  It's not horrible pain, but it's sharp and nagging.  Still, I convinced myself it was nothing.

Then I got emails, Facebook posts, radio and television commercials, all over the course of two days, discussing how the signs of heart attacks in women are different than for men and include things like back pain, nausea, and what not.  My mind began to wander and wonder--was this a message for me?  I thought about the fact that both of my kids had CHD and that there appeared to be a genetic component.  That would mean there's at least a 50% chance that the issue is from my genes, in which case there could be something going on with me.  I've had high cholesterol forever--even in college when I was 18 and weighed 150, my cholesterol was 206.  I'm certainly overweight, and I've had my ovaries removed.  All of these things increase the chance of heart attack.

I also have a family history of heart disease.  My grandmother was convinced something was wrong even though all her tests came back okay.  They finally took her in for a heart cath and couldn't even get the angioplasty balloon in, so she had quadruple bypass surgery; but she never had a heart attack thanks to her persistence.  I began to worry.  Still not enough to go to the doctor, but it was in the back of my mind.

Not until I woke up today with a sinus headache, mucus for days, and a general blah feeling, did I decide I needed to go to the doctor about this.  After antibiotic and steroid shots for the bronchitis, I had an EKG.  The good news is, it was completely normal.  The bad news is that all of my symptoms sounded very cardiac to the doctor.  And, given my grandmother's history, I was not reassured by the EKG.  So, the doctor sent an ASAP referral to a cardiologist, and I am waiting to hear back about when I can get in.

It is unlikely that anything is wrong.  It is highly likely that it's stress, on top of stress, on top of grief, on top of stress.  But, my family has already been through enough, so I'm getting it checked out.  I don't want to find myself in the hospital, or the great beyond, thinking "woulda, coulda, shoulda."  It's time to step-up the taking care of myself stuff.  Better safe, than sorry.