Medical Odyssey

My latest medical odyssey began about 8:00 AM Monday, May 10. I was at home sitting at my computer when all of a sudden, I couldn't see out of my left eye. Over the next 15-20 minutes it resolved itself and my vision returned to normal. I knew I needed to have this checked out so Chuck drove me to the Urgent Care Center at the Hammond Clinic.

I got to see a doctor fairly quickly at the clinic. After I described my symptoms and history to him he immediately told me that he would need to send me to the hospital. In the meantime he ordered some blood work and a CT of my head. While this was going on Chuck ran some errands. After the CT I was waiting in the urgent care waiting room when Chuck arrived. A little more waiting and we were called back to an exam room.

The doctor said that blood tests and CT were both clean but that I needed to go to the hospital since I had either had a stroke or a TIA (transient ischemic attack; a warning sign of a stroke). So off we went to the Community Hospital ER. I was brought into an exam room right away and repeated the story for the first of many times. They started an IV and then we waited for the ER doctor and for a room to open up.

After being in the exam room for about 1.5 to 2 hours, I sent Chuck home since there was no sense for him to sit there with me while nothing happened. About 10 minutes after Chuck left, they moved me into the hall, since the ER had gotten fairly busy. I was parked in the ER hall way for the next 6 hours with one trip for an MRI. Finally about 10:15, they moved me upstairs to a room. There was a preliminary diagnosis based on the MRI but noone had spoken about it to me.

The next morning, I started a getting a stream of visitors. Since I had originally come to the ER as a possible stroke patient, I was getting the stroke protocol. The nurses were checking that my speech and vision were okay and that I had no loss of muscle control or strength. I was also visited by various therapists: speech therapist, occupational therapist, physical therapist. I finally saw a doctor about 11:00 AM and was told exactly what the MRI had shown. There was a blockage in my left internal carotid artery with a possible dissection (meaning the blood might be flowing through the wall of the artery to get passed the blockage) of the artery. Now the important thing they need to find out was whether the blockage was 100% or less than that.

More tests were the order of the day: ultrasounds of my heart and the arteries on both sides of my neck as well as a transcranial doppler imaging of parts of my head (both temples, both eyes, and the back of my head.

I did also see a neurologist who explained some more about what the tests were showing so far and what more would be done. I also got a visit from my cardiologist (I've been seeing him on regular basis since my double bypass in 2007). He discussed with me what had had happened so far and what he felt should be the next step. The cardiologist went to discuss my case with the neurologist. When he came back, he told me that they disagreed on what the next step should be. The cardiologist thought I should have an regular angiogram to determine if the blockage was 100%. The neurologist thought I should a CT-angiogram to determine the same. The CT had been scheduled for 6:00 PM Tuesday but the cardiologist canceled it and scheduled a regular angiogram for 2:00 PM yesterday. The neurologist would be coming by to talk to me Wednesday morning and then I would have to decide which of their recommendations to follow.

The most important aspect of both recommendations was that if the blockage was 100% then neither doctor would recommend surgery to clear the blockage, but if the blockage was less than 100% then they would recommend surgery to clear the blockage.

During all of this time, I was experiencing no other symptoms. I felt fine in fact. But because I was admitted as possible stroke patient, I was on strict bed rest until Tuesday afternoon when I was told I get out of bed to go to the bathroom.

So Wednesday morning about 11:00, the neurologist come by and we talked about the procedure she recommended and why she didn't recommend what the cardiologist did. She also told me that regardless of the outcome of the CT, she would recommend a followup at the UIC (University of Illinois-Chicago) hospital which has a very good stroke care program. I was more uncertain than ever what I should do. So I called Chuck and we discussed the options and decided that since the regular angiogram was scheduled for 2:00 that day and that I had been under the care of the cardiologist for 3 years, we would go with his recommendations despite the very small risk.

Chuck arrived at the hospital at about 12:15 since I would be taken to be prepped for the angiogram at about 12:30. The nurse from the cath lab arrived right on time and we headed downstairs but instead of heading to one of the prep rooms, they took me right into the cath lab and started prepping me there. In no time the cardiologist arrived and the procedure started. During my previous angiogram in 2007, I was completely unconscious but not so this time. It was an odd sensation feeling the doctor insert the instrument into my leg. I could watch any of that but I did watch the monitors to see what was happening, especially when they were taking the pictures. The procedure was over as quickly as it had started and the cardiologist said it was 100% blocked. Woohoo, no surgery. By 1:30, I in a recovery room and at 2:00 they gave me something to eat. At 3:00 I sent back up to my room. A short while later, my primary care physician came by to check on me. I told her that I'd had the angiogram and that the cardiologist said the blockage was 100%. She went out to call him and discuss what should happen next. In a few minutes, the nurse came in with discharge papers and two new prescriptions. By 5:00 PM I was out of the hospital and heading home.

20 Years

Twenty years ago today Chuck and I met for the first time. We were introduced through a now-defunct computer dating service called, Comquest. We exchanged letters and phone calls before setting up a lunch date on the next Saturday, 28 January. I did meet one other person through Comquest but didn't pursue a relationship because the first date with Chuck went well enough. I ordered tuna salad for lunch, being that I was a somewhat poor graduate student. Chuck's reply was "How original!" I completely missed the sarcasm in his reply.

Chuck has said that he knew on our first date that I was the one. It took me a bit longer to get there, but after a month, I had a pretty good idea. Perhaps I should have known when, for our third date, he bought us tickets to Gone With the Wind at the Music Box theatre. 

The first summer we were together was a bit of a nightmare.I had commited to going to Israel for two months to work on an archaeological excavation. Those were the longest and hardest two months of my life, or so I thought at the time. It is certainly not something I would recommend to anyone in a new relationship. When I came back to Chicago in August, we moved in together. 

Because he came "Just in Time."

MFH: 03 November

Today is the 315th anniversary of the marriage of my 8th great-grandparents, Anna Margaretha Becker and Hanß Nickel Molter. Anna and Hanß were married on 03 November 1693 in Altenkirchen, Kusel, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany.

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Anna was born in about 1677 in Altenkirchen and Hanß was born in about 1667 in nearby Dittweiler. Anna and Hanß had eight children, five daughters and three sons.

My descent from Anna and Hanß is:
Hanß Nickel Molter + Anna Margaretha Becker
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Johann Theobald Molter + Anna Margaretha Angelica Pfaff
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Elisabetha Barbara Molter + Johann Adam Becker
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Johann Jacob Becker + Maria Catharina Mehl
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Catharina Barbara Becker + Johann Theobald Bender
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Margaretha Bender + Johannes Schoen
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Frederick August Schoen + Margaret Anna "Marianne" Kress
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John Charles Schoen + Helena Loretta Ruppel
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Harry Frederick Schoen + Freda Irene Needs
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My Father + My Mother
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Me


Today is also 161st anniversary of the marriage of my great-great-great-grandparents, Nancy Agnes Haddow and David P. Hayes. Nancy and David were married on 03 November 1847 in Washington County, Ohio.

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Nancy was born 20 March 1825 in Lanarkshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, the eldest daughter (of three) and third child (of six) of Robert and Jannette (Ormiston) Haddow. Nancy was nine years old when her family arrived in New York aboard the ship Portaferry on 06 June 1834.

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David was born on 18 April 1824 in Columbiana County, Ohio, the youngest son (of three) and youngest child (of ten) of Edmund and Sarah (Whitacre) Hayes.

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Nancy and David had nine children, three daughters and six sons. Nancy died on 22 December 1901 in Vincent, Washington County, Ohio and David died there on 15 December 1908.

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My descent from Nancy and David is:
Nancy Agnes Haddow + David P. Hayes
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Lewis C. Hayes + Adda R. Seely
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Harriett Hayes + Thomas Francis Hayes
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Mary Eileen Hayes + Benedict Aloysius Roddy
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My Mother + My Father
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Me

And finally, a very special Happy 45th Birthday shoutout to my partner, Chuck. You are my life and my soul. Without you I would be nothing. Here's something just for you!

Just In Time

The other night Chuck and I were watching a documentary on Logo about two gay couples having civil union ceremonies in Connecticut. Chuck asked me what would 'our song' be when we get married. Of course, I'd given the issue lots of thought and had decided the perfect song would be "Just In Time" by the inimitable Judy Garland. Yes, I got that part of the stereotype. I have the fashion and style sense of a Neanderthal but I got the Judy part, in spades.

If you don't know the song or haven't experience Judy singing it (live from the London Palladium!), prepare to be amazed.

Look Ma No Cane

I don't want to make this blog one long medical report after another but I've had a very medically intense year.

I work for the University of Chicago Press in the Hyde Park neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. I ride the South Shore commuter train from the Chesterton/Dune Park station to the 57th Street station in Chicago. From the train station, I have a 10 minute walk to my office in the Press building on 60th Street.

On March 3rd of this year, I was on my way to work and had just gotten off the train. I was crossing 57th Street when I slipped on some ice and fell, hard, to the ground. I knew instantly that I had broken my left leg. If I attempted to move, the pain in my leg was excruciating. Fortunately, some passersby stopped to help and called 911. A short time later I was in an ambulance on my way to the University of Chicago ER. Indeed, my left leg was broken just a little below the ball end at the top of the femur. I later learned that the doctors considered this a broken hip.

The doctors in the ER informed me that I would need surgery to insert a rod to repair the break. Fortunately, since my experience last year, I had made and Advanced Medical Directive that gave Chuck the right to make decisions on my behalf if I was unable to do so. I called my friend Cindy at work and asked her to come to the hospital and bring a copy of the directive that I kept at the office. So once again I found myself in the situation of having to call Chuck to tell him not only that I was in the hospital but that I would also need surgery again. I told him not to come to the hospital (hospitals bring out the worst in him) but to wait until I knew more of what would happen. I also called my parents and let them know what was going on and asked them to tell my siblings.

The doctors decided that I would have surgery the following morning. Early the next morning, my broken hip was repaired. Chuck came to the hospital and I was able to see him after I was back in my room following the surgery. I was expecting a relatively short stay in the hospital but my body had other plans. After the surgery, I started spiking a high fever and my heart started beating rapidly. Despite many tests over several days and massive antibiotics, the doctors could not figure out why I was spiking the fevers. Finally, on Saturday, they decided that I needed a second surgery so they could clean out the wound from the first surgery. The second surgery would be on Sunday. After the second surgery, they told there was a hematoma in the leg, no surprise there, but they did not find any infection. The fevers continued after the second surgery and the doctors were at as much of a loss as before.

In addition to the surgeons, I was also seeing doctors from the medicine, infectious diseases, and rheumatology services. There were running just about every test known to man to try to figure out why I kept having fevers. I consented to an HIV test which came back negative. None of the tests pointed to a cause of the fevers. On Wednesday of my second week in the hospital, the surgeons decided, much to the dismay of the infectious disease doctors, to stop the antibiotics. Miraculously, this did the trick. The fevers stopped almost immediately and in 24 hours they told me I could go home the following day as long as I did not develop any fevers in the meantime. After 12 days in the hospital, I was finally allowed to go home.

Chuck, Emerson, and Ozzie were greatly relieved to have me back home. This time I came home with a walker; not convenient for moving about an apartment with two small young dogs. Emerson and Ozzie were sufficiently afraid of the walker to keep out of my way most of the time. The week after getting home from the hospital I began physical therapy. The therapist quickly gave me crutches and I was able to move around more easily. At the beginning of May, the surgeon said that there was enough new bone growth around the break so that I could start bearing weight on my leg and that I should move from the crutches to a cane. Just this past week my therapist suggested that I start walking without the cane at home. And yesterday, I ventured out without the cane for the first time. It was good to finally walk around unencumbered. I'm hoping that the next year will be much quieter for me medically than the past year has been.

One Year Later

One year ago, at the age of 43 years, 8 months, and 17 days, I under went an emergency double coronary artery bypass. It all started with a little pain in my left shoulder. I was walking from my office to the train station, a 10 minute walk, one day after work. As I walked, I started getting a sharp pain in left shoulder. The pain wasn't very strong so I didn't think much of it. After I got to the train station the pain disappeared. Over the next several days, every time I walked from the train station to my office or from my office to the train station, the pain came back. It gradually intensified and spread down my left arm and into my chest. After about a week and half, I decided I could no longer ignore this pain and needed to see a doctor. Of course, I hadn't told my partner Chuck that the pain had gotten worse, so he was not very sympathetic to my desire to see a doctor.

So off to the urgent care center I went. I explained to the doctor what had been happening and he immediately said that I would need a stress test and might to be sent to the hospital immediately if they could not run the stress test at the clinic. He also asked about family history of heart disease. I knew there was some bad family history with respect to heart disease but I never thought it would pertain to me. In 1992, my mother's brother, my Uncle Mike, died from a sudden heart attack at the age of 44. His death certificate indicated that he had atherosclerosis (i.e., hardening of the arteries or blocked arteries) and an enlarged heart. A short time later, another of my mother's brothers, my Uncle Vince, was diagnosed with coronary artery disease; he was about 40 years old. Also, my grandmother's (my mother's mother) brother, my Uncle John, died in 1957 just one month shy of his 35th birthday from a sudden heart attack. In addition, both of my parents are on high blood pressure medication and my mother is also on medication for high cholesterol. I told all of this to the doctor and for the first time realized how significant it was to my life. I called home and left a voicemail for Chuck explaining what I knew at that time which wasn't much.

The doctor was able to have another doctor at the clinic give me a stress test. The results of the stress test were not good and the doctors decided that I had to go to the hospital
immediately so that the cardiologist their could do an angiogram. Before leaving the clinic, I called home again to let Chuck know what was happening. This time I did speak with him and told him all I knew. He was incredulous that a little pain in the shoulder could lead to all this drama but was concerned and supportive. As we only have one car, which I drove to the clinic, he called his sister and asked her to drive him to the clinic so he could pick up our car and then meet me at the hospital.

I was transported the 5 minutes to the hospital by ambulance with siren and lights blaring. Great fun! In the emergency room, their primary goal was keep me as comfortable as possible and then get me to a room as soon as possible. I wasn't in the ER very long, maybe about an hour before they took me to my room. The angiogram was scheduled for next morning. After getting settled in my room, Chuck arrived and I caught him up on what I knew. Now came the unpleasant task of notifying my family. I knew that if Chuck called my parents they probably wouldn't answer the phone or if they did wouldn't want to talk for long, but since I could call them from the hospital, he had to make that call. A short time later my father called my hospital room. His first question was to ask me who was in the hospital. I told him it was me and then proceeded to tell him what had happened. I asked my dad to call my siblings to let them know what was going on and to give them the phone number for my hospital room. I also asked Chuck to notify my boss and friends. At last, I could rest and begin waiting. The following morning, the angiogram was scheduled for 10:00. I was taken down to the cath lab where the nurse prepped my for the procedure. Chuck arrived shortly before the procedure was to start so I got to see him before they sedated me. The doctors did a good job of explaining exactly what would happen and thanks to the wonders of anesthesia I have no memory of the procedure.

After the angiogram, the doctors woke me up enough to tell that they found 2 arteries that 95+% blocked and that I would require immediate bypass surgery. The only thing I remember from this period is seeing the pictures of the blocked arteries. They did the surgery the same day, starting in later afternoon. Chuck and his sister waited at the hospital for many hours until they were told that I was out of surgery and in the recovery room. He wasn't able to see me but left the hospital knowing that I was in good hands.

The first time that I woke up after the surgery, still in an anesthetic haze, I sill had a tube in my throat and my arms in restraints (so I wouldn't try to pull the tube out of my throat). The doctors had prepared me for this do I don't remember being alarmed. The following morning was I woke up they took the tube out and removed the restraints. Later that morning, Chuck was able to visit and told me that my sister, Mary, was on her way. She decided that she could not stay at her home in North Carolina while I went through this life-altering and life-threatening ordeal. I was surprised and deeply appreciative that she would come. I have, I think, a very good relationship with all of my siblings; they are my best friends. The overriding feeling I had during this period was calm. I don't remember being anxious or worried about what was happening to me. So that is why I was surprised that Mary decided to travel to Indiana to be with Chuck and me. I know that my family were much more anxious for me than I was for myself.

After a couple of days in cardio-vascular intensive care, I was transferred to a regular hospital room. The days passed somewhat slowly and the first time the physical therapist came to get me to walk I thought she was insane. How could they possibly expect me to walk only a few days after having this major surgery. But, walk I did. After about a week in the hospital, the doctors said I was ready to go home. It seemed an unattainable ideal to me. I felt that I could barely feed myself, let alone do anything else. But as usual, I severely underestimated myself and my ability to cope to with a difficult, to say the least, situation.

With caring doctors and nurses, a changed perspective and attitude about food and exercise and some terrific meds, I am now doing quite well. My cardiologist assures me that if I continue with the changes I have made, eating healthier foods, exercising, and taking my meds, I should not have a recurrence of the problems which landed me in the hospital a year ago.

So the moral of this story is pay attention and take to heart, no pun intended, your family history and make sure you share that family history with your health care provider. It just might save your life.

Dramatis Personae

I'd like to briefly introduce you to the main players in our drama.

I am Rick, your narrator and commentator. I am 44 years old and currently living in northwest Indiana. Although I was born in golden state of California I consider myself to be a Buckeye from the great state of Ohio. My parents moved a few times in the early years of their marriage---Washington, DC; California; Ohio. I lived in Ohio from the time I was two years old until I graduated from college. The I moved to Chicago for graduate school, fell in love and eventually moved to Indiana. I am the third son and third (of six) child in my family. I have two older brothers and three younger sisters.

Chuck, my partner, is also 44. He was born and raised in northwest Indiana. Apart from living in Chicago for about 12 years, he has lived in Indiana all his life. He is the only son and fifth (of six) child of his parents. He has four older and one younger sisters.

Emerson (the brindle on the left) and Ozzie (the fawn on the right), both 16 months old, are our two French Bulldogs. They are brothers and litter mates. They came to live with us when they were three months old. They are the fourth and fifth French Bulldogs that have shared our lives. Our previous three companions, Henri, Pete, and Bert, are gone but most fondly remembered.