March 24-29, 2015
Written March 25+
Written March 25+
Dear Diary, Friends, and Families,
This
is the story of the expedition to Marianne's heart specialist ("electro
physiologist") in Santa Clara. At this point, I'm was not sure events
should make it to diary status, or maybe this will show up and
disappear. On the one hand I use these diaries as stress therapy,
but I suppose there should be privacy limits as well. We'll see.
We
left Fresno Tuesday, late morning, lunched in Los Banos, and showed up
at Ava & Sam's house about 3. It was great to hear the
shrieks when we opened the back door and saw the two waiting
grandkids. Within minutes we had been hijacked to play. Sam had
me playing "traffic" and Ava had Gigi listening to the latest house
stories (new goldfish and all.)After that, it was a walk in the neighborhood, including a stop by the neighbor horse stables. The kids have enjoyed this part for as long as I remember.
    
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The walk left everyone pooped and most of us could rest, except for the cooking staff (Gabby & Gigi) who worked up a nice fish dinner. After a story by Gigi, the kids went straight to sleep and the adults had time for a little conversation. Gabby even had time to give her mom a facial treatment, using the new "products" she is starting to market. Lots of laughs.
On Wednesday morning Marianne had her first medical appointment: blood tests and EKG, both with completely nominal results. Everything else that day was pretty nominal as well; some shopping, playing with kids, dinner BBQ, and an early bedtime.
6am
Thursday: I started the day at Starbucks, like usual for any travel
day. We both had slept well, so that was a good sign. We
left at
about 9:45 for the 10:30 hospital appointment. All we had heard
so far was that the procedure should take about three hours, although
I'll admit I didn't know when those hours start. She went from pre-op
to the OR at about 12:45 and I went back to the worry-room.4:45 pm Thursday bulletin. Procedure over. According to doctor, all went OK. I was able to see Marianne in about a half-hour.
12:00 noon Friday bulletin. Marianne slept well overnight, but BP and pulse fell, making her pretty tired and weak. After some amount of thinking, the doctors concluded that the problem might have been a medicine that was prescribed last night. New plan is to not take that heart regulation pill nor her normal "beta blocker". Hospital stay extended for another day.
10:40 Saturday morning. Marianne was much, much better and ready to go home (actually to Gabby's for a day or two). She would go home with fewer regular meds than she needed when she came in. Real progress! (See footnote from next diary.)
8:35pm Sunday bulletin. Heart doing as well as expected - some lingering pain, a few odd "blips", but nothing not projected in the discharge papers. Almost. Our star patient had picked up some sort of intestinal bug, so it was back to the clinic for fluid samples, both Sunday and Monday, back in Fresno. All results turned out negative and the medical staff just wrote it off to the internal "shock" of the whole procedure. Another side affect we don't remember getting warned about.
By Tuesday, Marianne was feeling decent and we felt we could return to our normal routine: Art Hop, Easter Preparations, annual yard sale, etc. But those are all for another diary.
John and Marianne