Category Archives: Personal

Well, that was interesting

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Early last week when I was walking the dogs, I decided to walk back up the mountain at a little faster pace than normal. Since I had recently had a shot in my knee, I was feeling good. I could tell that it had been a long time since I had done anything more than a slow walk. I was breathing hard by the time I got to our driveway, which is steep. I was breathing even harder at the top of the drive, but so what, I thought, it will be good for me.

I tried it again the next day, and I had to stop once or twice. Well, I thought, it will be a process.

The next day I stopped a lot. Not right, I thought. The day after, I could barely get back up the mountain to home. Definitely not right. I called my doctor, and he recommended that I go to the emergency room. That was Friday. I didn’t feel like going, so I didn’t. But Saturday I did feel like going, so I did. And it was a good thing.

I had multiple blood clots in my lungs. They admitted me, and I spent from Saturday night to Monday on a heparin drip. Any time I tried to breathe deeply, my breath caught in my lungs and made me cough, so I was constantly struggling to breathe. I was winded from getting up and going to the bathroom. I spent ten minutes breathing hard to recover. I could barely talk on the phone for gasping for air.

A chest x-ray and a CT scan had shown a lot of little blood clots. Although each was small, they added up to a major load on my heart and lungs. They also found a nodule in one lung. They assured me they would refer me to someone who could follow up on it. They didn’t seem worried.

But I was worried.

I had no pain initially, even when my attempts at a deep breath ended in coughing. Sunday night my back started hurting enough that I asked for acetaminophen, which helped some. But now it was back pain that kept me from drawing a deep breath. The back pain seems to be muscular, rather than associated with the clots. No one in the hospital seemed concerned with the back pain. Maybe every patient has back pain after a few hours in a hospital bed.

By Monday they figured all my vitals looked good enough, so they sent me home with a prescription for Xeralto for the clots and hydrocodone for the back pain. I was pretty much exhausted when I got home. I had not slept well the whole weekend and had missed most of my meals. Plus, getting enough oxygen into my system was hard work. So I took a pain pill and piled up in bed for a nap. Zoe jumped up, gave my face a good washing and laid down next to me. The next hour was a deep, painless, rewarding sleep. I wouldn’t do the hospital stay again for a lot of money, but I would take that nap again just about any time, for free.

I saw my regular doctor on Tuesday. He assured me that I was right to have been worried, because I could have died. He said that since I was active and had none of the normal risk factors, other than perhaps a genetic risk, he didn’t really have any idea why I got the clots. He did say that cancer can cause clots like I experienced. Nice to know that.

He said that the nodule didn’t look like cancer because it was smooth rather than spiculated, that is, looking like it has little spikes on the surface.

Apparently nodules are common in adults. One source said about half of all lung X-rays of adults show a nodule. Also, apparently only a small percentage of nodules turn out to be malignant. Also, nodules smaller than around 9 or 10 mm are less likely to be malignant than nodules that are larger. My nodule is about 10 mm. Not small. Not large. So the nodule is probably not malignant, but there is a smallish chance that it is.

My doctor said that I had weathered the first storm and had come out on the other side. He said taking an anticoagulant reduces my risk of another clot significantly. I am supposed to have an appointment with another doctor soon. They will look at my nodule and decide what to do. A PET scan might show whether it is malignant, and whether there might be other cancers lurking about. They might take a biopsy. They might wait a couple of months and take another x-ray.

I think almost anyone would be at least a little worried at this point. I know I am. I can’t help thinking of my brother, whose doctor discovered his pancreatic cancer when he did an ultrasound on his liver. He found metastases there and in his lungs. I had ultrasounds of my heart, liver and some other abdominal organs. So far no one has said anything about suspicious lumps anywhere but in my lungs, so maybe that’s one worry I should put aside. A PET scan would probably clear that up one way or the other.

I felt pretty good Tuesday, even after visiting the doctor. I can breathe much more easily, I can walk around like a normal person without panting, although I know better than to try to climb the mountain, and I can have a conversation without stopping for air after every word. I can still tell that I’m not getting as much oxygen as my body would like.

In the meantime I have tried to start talking to Leah about what she might do if I end up dead.

I am not a happy person right now. It’s surprising to me how emotional this has made me. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Everyone dies, but not today, right? But this is like feeling a tap on my shoulder, looking around, and seeing a skeletal hand resting there.

Henry

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My brother Henry died four years ago today on April 6, 2018. Here he is with my father and mother.

My brother, kind of nerdy, with the pen in his shirt pocket, and my father, with his Indian belt buckle. I still have that buckle.

This photo was taken probably some time in the early 1990’s or even the late 1980’s. Henry’s hair had not started to turn white. I’m not sure when it was taken, but it was before health problems started making it harder for everyone to smile.

I have written before about how hard it is for me to internalize the loss of my family. When I look photos like this it feels as if they are pictures from a particularly engaging novel or movie, not something that was an actual part of my own life.

But I also feel like they are still here. Henry especially. So it’s two worlds, one where they don’t exist, and one where they do.

I have said that I think (believe? hope? maybe?) that the past actually exists, out of our reach, of course, but still there, if only we could invent a time machine. When I think of my family back there, it’s like seeing into the past, but with a dirty, vignetting telescope.

I suppose the only good thing is that I remember them they way they are in the photograph, not the way they were right before they died.

What was your name again?

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As I said in my previous post, my most recent routine visit to my cardiologist and the purely-a-formality electrocardiogram found that I have, or possibly had, an inverted t wave, about which nothing good can be said. The PA didn’t go into detail other than to mention ischemia, so, like all normal people, I immediately went home to do an online search. What I found was enough to keep me worried until I had my echocardiogram, which was last Wednesday, a week ago from the date of this post. I continued to worry, until, finally, on Friday, a person not the PA or the cardiologist called to report the results.

She said my heart function was normal, which I was glad to hear. And then she said my shortness of breath was probably caused by my Covid infection. At that point I started saying, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, I haven’t had Covid and I didn’t complain of shortness of breath!”

There was some confusion on the other end, pretty much matched on my end. She promised to find out what was going on. I was pretty sure I had just been given someone else’s ECG results. I had some hope of hearing the rest of my story later on Friday, but that didn’t happen. So I was able to continue to worry through the weekend.

On Monday, I heard from the PA her own self. She told me that somehow someone somewhere had written my results on someone else’s record, or possibly someone else’s results on my record, but in any case, whatever anyone told me earlier was no longer operative.

Then she told me my results. My ejection fraction had actually improved from the last ECG I had about eight years ago.

The ejection fraction is a measure of how well the heart pumps blood out of the left (or possibly right) ventricle. As I understand, it is the ratio of the chamber volume when it contracts to the chamber volume when it is relaxed. Or possibly the ratio of the areas of the ECG image of that chamber under those conditions. But, whatever. Normal is 50 to 75%. “Borderline” can range from around 41% to 50%. When I first found out about my heart problem back eight or nine years ago, my ejection fraction was about 35%, which is definitely low and indicates a good (or possibly bad) chance of early, heart-related death. The next ECG several months later showed an ejection fraction of 45%, which was sufficiently good that my cardiology team was reduced from two doctors to one, and I began a series of routine yearly visits to the cardiologist. My future looked bright, or at least longer.

So now my ejection fraction, as measured just last week on me I am pretty sure, is 50 to 55%, which is low normal. The PA had no explanation for an inverted t wave with no symptoms or other associated measures of heart function. “Transient,” she guessed. Good enough for me. I will stop worrying about my heart for the time being, and I hope everyone else can stop worrying about my or anyone else’s heart.

Now, what was next on my worry list?

Brothers

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Hey, I’m back.

I didn’t realize it has been so long since I last posted. I can’t excuse my absence with a doctor’s note or anything important, good, or bad. I have just been too lazy to do it. But I was going over some of my parents’ lost photo albums and found a couple of similar photographs, separated by 40 years or so.

This is my brother Henry and me.

Henry was probably around five or six. This photo was taken around 1952 or so, back when it was legal for a kid to pack a cap pistol.

And these are my nephews Russel and Thomas (the older nephew formerly known as Reid).

The age difference between Henry and me, and between Thomas and Russel is about the same, around three years. Thomas is in the near vicinity of 40 now, a fact that is hard for me to digest. Henry and I also had red hair when we were younger.

Thomas just bought a house in Dallas, so I figure we can count on his being there for a while. Russell and his wife Caroline bought a house Denver a while back, so I guess we can count on their being there for a while. It makes for a good excuse for a road trip.

Things fall apart

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We have had more problems with appliances and fixtures at this house in the four or five years we have been here than we did in the 10 years we lived in our old house.

First the control board in the dishwasher failed, and I had to replace that. That wasn’t too bad.

Then the microwave oven failed, and I had to replace that. I did some searching for potential fixes, but it seemed unlikely they would solve the problem, so we had to buy a new over-range microwave.

Then the clothes dryer started making terrible screeching noises, and I had to repair that. Actually, I had to pull and dryer and washer out of their little nook and remove the back of the dryer to oil a tensioner pulley. Then it started making more noises. I diagnosed that as failing rollers that support the dryer drum. I knew what I needed to do, but I had to recover from my shoulder surgery before I could start.

I ordered what I hoped was the right set of rollers, and I found what seemed to be good instructions online for doing the repair. Our dryer was not quite the same as the one in the instruction video, but it was close enough. This repair required removing the top panel and the entire front. In the process, I broke the switch that turns the dryer off when you open the door. So I had to order that. I completed the repair and the dryer now makes only the noises it’s supposed to.

And then the vent fan in one of our bathrooms failed. I couldn’t believe it. Bathroom vent fans were installed in my parents’ house in around 1967, and they were still working in 2013, the last time I was in the house. Electric motors are one of the most reliable pieces of technology we have today. It shouldn’t have failed. But it did, so I took the guts of the fan and light fixture out, hoping to repair it without replacing the entire unit, which would have required going into the attic. I did not relish that idea, with temperatures in the upper 80’s or low 90’s.

I dug into it and found the motor. This is the offender.

I couldn’t find the fan’s brand name anywhere. The most I could find was the name of the Chinese company that made the actual motor. So I took the fan motor to an electric motor specialist. He scoffed at it. He said it was a piece of cheap crap, although not in those words. He said I was unlikely to find a replacement, which I already knew from searching online. You can certainly get replacement vent fan motors, but nothing that looked anywhere close to this one.

So I started looking for a new unit. I didn’t want the institutional square, white, vented fan. Ours had a nice glass shade, so I looked for nice glass shades. I found one that looked similar. When I looked at the details, even the mounting screws and brackets looked the same. So I ordered it.

The replacement unit was a Hunter, a reasonably well-known name. It was the same model that we had installed in our bathroom ceiling. All the pieces looked the same, except that the motor was a little different. Maybe the old motors were having problems.

But that didn’t matter. I could install this fan and fan housing in the same fixture, and never climb into the attic.

So, it was almost identical. Almost. Two screw holes were about an eighth of an inch away from where they needed to be. I plugged the fan unit into the housing and went back and forth to the garage, looking for a way to make the holes line up. I left the fan hanging by the electrical plug, which should have locked it in place, so, of course it didn’t. The metal fan housing fell ten feet to the tile floor and chipped off a nice piece of tile, right in the middle of the room.

I was not happy.

In the end, I managed to find two screws (I knew I might need those screws!) into the fixture and closed it up, so we now have a working vent fan and a light fixture in the bathroom. I can hardly wait to take a shower tonight.

So, what’s next? Well, one of the heating elements on our electric range has to be replaced. I found a good instruction video online, and I’m sure I can find a replacement heating element that’s almost identical to the one that went bad. Almost identical, anyway.