These people don't know their own silly business

We are home safe and sound. Got to spend last night sleeping soundly in our very own beds. YAY. There is a MAJOR winter storm moving onto Alaska from Russia and we just beat it home. Had a huge shopping trip to Sam's club, plus all the little things we bought during the week to distract us. Everywhere we went people were saying, well, this product won't be made anymore and this company is out of business, this is our last shipment from them, etc, so it felt like there was shopping that needed to be done while the products were still there.

Anyway, Thursday, the ct scan of the heart should have taken 10 minutes. We rested all morning and didn't even leave our room so we would get to the hospital in time and be all fasted and hydrated like they required. It was a nightmare ! ! ! Well, not a nightmare, but an infuriating and frustrating 3 HOURS . They couldn't find a good vein, so they finally got the nurse from the other morning and she put in the needle and showed them how to hold it down so that it wouldn't blow out when they put in the medicine, but they didn't pay attention to what she said. So they were putting all these meds and saline in me and not holding in the needle so it all pooled right under my skin.

so then, they got all freaked because the meds were supposed to slow my heart down, but my heart wasn't slowing down and they couldn't figure out why it wasn't slowing down until she went to put the contrast in and I said OUCH ! ! and she started looking under all the tape and finally figured out she had blown the vein. I'm so glad we noticed it before she put the iodine in. She said that is really painful if it doesn't go into the vein.

So they said what we'll do is put you on the oral beta-blocker for a few days and that will slow your heart down, (because we can't get it to go down thru the IV- which of course didn't go into the vein, so they don't know it didn't work). Anyway, we will have you come back in a few days and we'll TRY again. I just burst into tears. I said, you don't understand, we had to pay 300 d0llars just for the motel to stay and have this test today, I can't afford to just go home and come back in a few days, you just don't understand. Seriously, you DON"T UNDERSTAND, my husband works at the school and he doesn't get paid during spring break and next month is spring break and you just don't understand, I can't afford to just keep coming back so you can TRY .... cry, cry, cry.

They went and got the cardiologist and 3 other nurses. The doctor said we would try to find one more vein and if that didn't work, we would just forget the contrast part of the test, that basically we ALREADY HAD SEEN EVERYTHING THAT WE EXPECTED TO SEE. There is a tiny amount of plaque, maybe, in the bottom part of the heart. He said to keep taking my aspirin every day even though the surgeon told me to stop for 2 weeks before the surgery and to keep taking the beta blocker. that's it. He kept stressing that my heart is abnormal and there is a risk if I have surgery, but then he'd say, well, it's not that big of a risk, but there is a risk. I was just like: OKAY, I get it already. so the 3 nurses tried for probably another hour to find a vein, they poked every blue spot clear up to my arm pits (seriously) and then the tech came in and said, well, I can't use a vein in that part of the arm, they aren't big enough for the contrast. .......so they just sent me home.

Mind you the day before, in the same vein, I had the same contrast put in for a different CT and they could have run me strait from that CT to this CT and used the same contrast, etc. but NO, they didn't do that.

So late Thursday afternoon we finally got to spend an hour in our favorite scrap book store, which we had been keeping for our treat for end of testing. She didn't have anything new in from the craft and hobby show in Anaheim. It will be in later, but we had a nice visit. It is a very tiny, personal store.

Then we got to spend 2 hours listening to our Relief Society general president from Salt Lake City. and we got to visit with our friend Amanda. We were so upset after the hospital mess that we almost didn't go and then at the same moment, the Spirit just said, GIRLS YOU HAVE TO GO. So we did and we got some good hope and some good encouragement.

Friday as we were driving home, we got phone calls from the surgeon and the cardiologist. The surgeon said, "I don't care what the cardiologist said. Stop taking the aspirin 2 weeks before the surgery."

And the cardiologist said, "What do you mean you are going ahead with the surgery, even though you have this tiny defect in your heart?" And he wanted to know why I had left so early the day before, he had wanted to talk with me again to set up our game plan. I was there for 3 hours, he couldn't have mentioned the game plan somewhere in the 3 hours???

So I said, Doctor, the risks from having the cancer are more of a concern - if you saw the cancer, I'm sure you would agree. Have you seen my cancer? He said no he hadn't but he guessed if I was sure that I needed the cancer surgery right away, he would go ahead and write up his report based on the fact that I was going to have surgery in 2 weeks. As long as I realized there was a risk ( and believe it or not that last paragraph is a direct quote).

So I spent a week and thousands of dollars of state and personal money to go to a specialist that nobody is going to listen to. Silly Silly people.

Alicia caught a bug - seems like a cold - this week. Justin says it is from hanging out in the hospital all week, probably true. Anyway, we are home and we feel good about the condition of my heart. Considering my age and weight (which apparently according to everyone we met at the heart institute is too much) and that I have had lupus for 40 years, I am very relieved that all they found was a teeny tiny bit of plaque in one teeny tiny area of my heart when it was stressed. When it is resting, the heart is perfectly normal.

Thanks for all your prayers. I know they worked. We could feel them. I was much more worried about this week of heart tests than I am about the surgery. I just have faith that there won't be the amount of cancer they think there is. I think we found it before it turned to cancer and the surgery in the end will just be a routine hysterectomy.

Barbara Gulley - I got your beautiful card this morning. THANK YOU. It lit up my day.

Have a good week and welcome to MARCH - I think we have made it thru another winter, almost. Love, Charlotte