It's been a long day already.
I'm treating myself to two foot-long Subway sandwiches (tuna and chicken-bacon-avocado) in celebration of a good hospital visit. The diabetes doc said my numbers had "really improved" since I'd left the hospital on August 19. My BP, normal-ish when I took it at home this morning (124/77), was much lower according to the hospital's machines: 109/57! Even better news was my A1c, which the doc said had dropped almost down to my personal best three years ago: it was 5.9 as of today! Under 6 is the high end of normal; for a diabetic, getting under 6 is good news. Getting to around 5.4 or 5.5 would be ideal. Three years ago, my personal best was 5.7, so I'm almost there, and if I go on a long walk this year (I'm even more motivated to do so now), I might drop the A1c even lower than 5.7. We'll see. And even better news than all of this was that the two docs don't want to see me until January 17* next year. So if I stay on the current discipline, the news next year ought to be good.
As I'd mentioned in my previous post, I had some questions I'd wanted to ask the docs, especially the cardiac doc, who turned out to be a quiet, friendly guy (he also looked vaguely familiar... was he one of the docs when I was a patient?). Here are those questions:
Q1: Do I/Did I have any other blockages than the one that got stented?
A1: Yes, but only one coronary artery was completely blocked, requiring a stent. The two or three others were around 30% blocked, maximum. The doc even showed me video of my blood vessels, allowing me to see the partial blockages and the complete blockage for myself. The complete blockage was like looking at a traffic jam: the vessel had blood in it up to a point, and beyond that, there was nothing. Blocked. It really did remind me of a multiple-car pileup completely shutting down traffic.
Q2: Is the pain in my leg a clot or something else, and what can be done about it?
A2: The doc said that, given that the pain started about two weeks ago (i.e., not long after I'd left the hospital), it was possible that it was hospital-related. He agreed with my brother David's theory that it could be a clot, but he wasn't able to say for sure. There was no mention of testing; he simply prescribed more pain meds and relied on the standard hope that, if it's a clot, it'll resolve itself in time. In the meantime, I gather that sleep is going to be uncomfortable for a while.
Q3: When, if ever, will I be taking a stress test?
A3: The doc didn't understand my Konglish attempt at saying "stress test" at first, so I clunkily explained that it was the test that's done on a treadmill (which Koreans call, in Konglish, a "running machine"). He said such a test might be done "later," especially if the other tests reveal other problems surfacing. Otherwise, the graph of my progress is trending positively, so there's apparently no need for such a test, or so he says.
If you all can think of other questions I should ask the docs in January, leave them in the comments section. Otherwise, I'll note that the diabetes doc was happy to see that I've been recording my numbers almost every day. I'd brought her a printout of my spreadsheet. I think she now expects to see a printout every time I visit. The hospital had given me a special notebook for recording one's numbers, but because I've been using my Google Docs spreadsheet since before I got that notebook, I stuck with my spreadsheet. Maybe in January, I'll offer to email her the link to my spreadsheet so she can look at it whenever, but I suspect she's too busy and too buried under other patients' numbers to really care that much. She's probably just happy to see a rare patient who bothers to keep a fairly scrupulous health record.
Since this past Monday, I haven't replicated that 9K walk, but I'm going to try for either a 14K walk this weekend out to Jamshil Bridge and back (Saturday afternoon/evening is currently looking free of rain, but that might change) or an 18K walk along the Tan Creek to Bundang. I haven't done the Bundang walk in a long time; I kinda miss it. If I do either walk, I won't flay myself for having to rest, but one goal will be to get to a point where I can do the same walk without resting. That was fairly easy before the heart attack; I don't know about now. And while I'd thought I'd restart my stairs training this week, that didn't happen. So—next week. Progress is slow and choppy, but if the docs are happy, I'm happy.
Feels good to eat lunch after three days of "fasting." No more faintness.
More later.
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*Alas, January 17 is my father's birthday. Don't remind me. More happily, it's also Benjamin Franklin's and Muhammad Ali's birthday, too. (Ali was born in '42, like Dad. And Biden.)
Sounds like things went pretty well. Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteCan't think of any additional questions to ask at the moment, but if any come up, I'll try to note them down.
Also, totally unrelated, but I don't know if I ever gave you this news, which I was reminded of when I passed by on a walk last night: "The Melting Pot" has gone under. You know I don't eat a whole lot of meat anymore, but I'm still sad to see it go. It was a good burger place.
That's a shame. I liked that place a lot. Well, there's always California Kitchen. But given the curse that follows me around—that everything I like ends up disappearing—I'm afraid that that place, too, is doomed to fail.
ReplyDelete