After a panic... ready for the weekend

I end this week beaten, broken, and overwhelmed. All these tests that I have had done, all the blood I've had drawn, has gotten me sore and tired.

The catheter I had done on Tuesday presented another new revelation, Not only do I have an aneurysm on the aorta but I also either have a leaky aortic valve or I have a hole in my heart. It just seems to keep piling on. This latest news put me back in a CT Scan. The second one in three weeks.

And this one didn't go well. I don't know why but everything caught up with me when I was laid down and the bed started moving... I started to panic... I started to cry. I wasn't necessarily nervous with anything in particular, I just became overwhelmed with it all.

I've been poked and probed, to the point that it all has become a never ending horrible nightmare. The radiologist and the nurse got me calmed down and I white knuckled my way through it. Still waiting on the results of this scan.

After that I went to see an arthritis doctor and had another exam. I was doing OK with it, until she mentioned she wanted more blood drawn. And again the tears broke free. She felt my pain and my powerlessness and said I could do it anytime this weekend.

Then she mentioned about seeing another doctor. I didn't cry but I wanted to. I told her that I was done. I want to get my heart fixed and the rest can wait. She actually agreed with me. That her appointment and this new doctor's appointment could wait till after the surgery. Oh, by the way, she isn't convinced that I have arthritis, that what is going on is with my heart but she wants to be 100% sure.

When I regained my composure, she said this other doctor deals more with the nerves. Like every other doctor, she believes that I have had this condition with my heart for years. She wants to find out if my tremors might be associated with it all.

If that is the case, then my heart has been acting up since I was 17. I started shaking when I was in high school and if there is a chance that I could find an answer to it and maybe a way to stop it... I will be all in favor of that. In fact, I'm excited by that idea... BUT no more until after the surgery.

The surgery? As of Thursday (28^th), the 3 and a half hour surgery is scheduled for September 15^th. That is before the last CT Scan.

On the bright side of all this... on Saturday I will be celebrating 20 years of sobriety.