Wednesday, March 14, 2012

March 14 2012

Nothing new on Adele is good news.  She did visit her local Oncologist and he set another appointment for her in August, and she will get checked at Johns Hopkins in February 2013.  In other words she will have a good checkup every 6 months, and that pleases her greatly.  Sometimes yearly seems too long of a period without a checkup.

I (Rick) am an unhappy patient right now.  My back surgery scheduled for March 1st was cancelled by a heart doctor wanting to see more tests run on my ticker.  OK, so he sees me on Feb 29th and says "I see muscle damage" upon looking at his computer screen for 10 seconds.  Then he tries to make sure I know that surgery will not happen until he OKs me, and that he needs to do a 'stress / echo' exam right away.  OK, but then we need the insurance company to OK that, and when I call the heart doctor on March 2nd they say they are waiting for the insurance company to give the go ahead.  Now I am ticked off, so I call the insurance company, and find out that they (the insurance Co) has had no request for any 'stress / echo' exams from the Heart Group.  So now I call back the Heart Group and get to the person that should have sent in (or called) the request for the tests, and she says they do not have any authorisation - and then I say, the Ins Co has no record of a request for the tests. After I get put on hold for almost 3 minutes, she is back and magically the tests are approved by the Ins. Co.  Maybe she called them while I was on hold????

OK - now I was told by the Heart Group doctor, that the test will be run ASAP, so scheduling says we can do the tests on March 9th at 2:30 pm.  Of course there is a 12 hour fast included, so I cannot eat when I get up and am not allowed caffeine - until after the tests. 

Tests are being done, and the echo tech asks if anyone had ever said anything about a 'hole in your heart' before.  My answer was no, but she said nothing else about that.  I did the echo / stress on a treadmill / echo and asked if I was to make an appt upstairs with the doctor.  No, he will call you or set up an appt is what I was told.  I worry Sat and Sun about a 'hole in my heart' then do a google on it and find that up to 20% of adults have the condition and the treatment is to do nothing, unless a cardiac problem is suspected.  I call the Heart Group on Mon noon, and find out the results are done, but no - the doctor will call you or make an appt to see you.  Tuesday was lousy and I just worried every minute wondering if I should call them back again.

OK - News - I am writing this out and got a call from the nurse at the Heart Group, who informed me that I am cleared for surgery, and that they will inform Lancaster Neuro and Spine of that.  Thank God, I no longer have to worry about that, and have all these scenarios going through my head about, what if the hole in my heart gets larger????

Relief - now to wait to hear from Lanc Neuro and Spine, they are on the ball and I am sure will call me today about the schedule.