Yesterday...

The cath went well yesterday. I'm at home today resting. I'm supposed to stay off my feet as much as possible which I believe equates to "be as bored as possible". It was pretty interesting. We made it to the hospital at 6:00, got checked in and I was in the cath holding area by 7:00. We went over some questions, they started an IV and when the doc got there, we got started. I was pretty tired from having to get up and ride down that morning, so when they gave me the narcotics, I pretty much passed out. I woke towards the end of the procedure. They inject some dye into your blood stream and take an x-ray to get a better picture of your heart and when the injection hits you it feels like your body is on fire. They had to do that twice and that was really the worst part of the procedure itself. I was back in the holding area by 10:00. I had to then lay completly flat for serveral hours. At around 12:00 they allowed me to incline some and at 2:00 I was allowed to sit all the way up. At 3:00 they had me swing my feet off the bed and when I was ready, I was able to get dressed and then we were gone.

As to the results, the cath showed pretty much the same thing that the echo showed. We're going to have to have surgery this summer. We go back in about a week or so and at that point we'll set up a time frame for when we want to do the surgery and we'll talk about what will actually be done. I'm not terribly surprised. I still feel fine and don't have any symptoms, but the tests all say otherwise.

It's going to be a tuff summer, but we'll make it. Now that the inital shock has passed, we've put our trust in the Lord and I know that this is what his plan is and that whatever happens, he'll be glorified in it. We ask that you all continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers and we want to once again say thank you for all the prayers that have already been said.

I also would like to say thanks to Joy for bringing over dinner for us last night and to her mother for the wonderful cake. It was very kind of you both and we can't express our appreciation with words alone.

We forgot to take the camera again, so once again, no pictures for the public to laugh at. Surely we'll be able to remember the thing when I go for my surgery. Anyway... I'm still doing research on the net about the condition. I'm going to turn my attention now and see what I can find on the surgery itself. I'll continue to post any good links I find. I'm also going to start telling more people about the blog. Now that it's a done deal that I'm having the surgery, I don't see any reason not to tell everyone about it. Till next time,

Paul