The next exciting installment

We were up at the crack of dawn, well, to be fair it was even before the crack of dawn. We had to travel across the city from Torbay to Ellerslie for Roy’s appointments as we had to be there by 6.45am and you just never know what the traffic is going to be like.  We arrived with plenty of time to spare.  

We were quickly escorted into the procedure room where two nurses were waiting to prep Roy ready for the Drs arrival, they do the usual checks; temperature, blood pressure, pulse, a cardiogram, you know the usual, and yes Roy’s blood pressure was very high (for him) as was his heart rate, which is to be expected I suppose.

First on the schedule was the  T.O.E. (transoesohageal echocardiogram) which is a scope (or should I say a very long, mean looking piece of pipe) shoved down carefully inserted down Roy’s  throat so that an internal scan of his heart can be performed to look for any clots particularly in the back of the heart.  If there are any clots, then they would not be able to do the next procedure.  And yes he would be sedated for the process, but not for the chest shaving that was part of the prep!!   When I left to go to the waiting room at 7.20 the anaethestist and specialist had arrived and introduced themselves.  Soon they were starting to put the needles in ready to administer  sedation drugs….time for me to exit! By this time Antony had arrived to keep me company.

 By 7.45 the anaesthetist was out saying it had all gone well and they had not found any clots so they could then go on to do the CV (shock to the heart) with that process being successful with the heart restored back to normal rhythm. The specialist who did the procedures then came out to say all was good and that the cardiologist would see us once Roy was up and about in an hour or two. Which is exactly what happened.   Roy came out an hour or so later to join us in the waiting room.   They served  him a light breakfast, to make sure he could swallow OK, and said to relax as he needed  time for everything to settle.  

We saw the cardiologist later in the morning, who went thru everything from the days tests, and then went on to explain the procedure scheduled for Monday.   This will be an angiogram which is used to check to see if the arteries are ok and if necessary they put in stents at that point. The cardiologist did say that Roy’s  heart valves and the heart itself appeared ok, so this just the final check to rule out the physical anomalies that can result in Atrial Fibrillation……. otherwise we put it down to the fact that it’s  just one of those things that happen. Hopefully this has fixed it, but apparently it can recur in some cases.  

 Once Mondays procedures are done with they will then reschedule the prostate surgery for 4 weeks time. The cardiologist and Urologist have been communicating, and as the cancer is minuscule and it is the size of the prostate that is the real problem, then another 4 weeks to wait is not an issue and we are still well on schedule for our trip.

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment.