Thursday, February 26, 2015

The good, bad and ugly

Well, it has been an eventful couple of weeks here in the Carolinas. As I have reported on this blog previously, I have suffered from cardiac arrhythmia for most of my adult life. Most of the time, it has been well controlled by medication; you probably never even know I had it. Once in a while, for no reason at all, the medications stop working as effectively as before and are changed. Most of the time, that's all it takes and I resume my normal operations; you know, relaxing and enjoying life to the fullest.

A couple of weeks ago, my heart went to atrial fibrillation. It's a fairly dangerous condition that sometimes leads to stroke or death. I doubled my medication, a process previously discussed with the doctors, but it didn't subside. Yes; I have two cardiologists!

After consulting the doctors, I had a cardioversion. Cardioversion is a medical procedure by which an abnormally fast heart rate (tachycardia) or cardiac arrhythmia is converted to a normal rhythm using electricity, in my case.





It's not as scary as it looks, however.

I am happy to report that my pulse has returned to a normal rate and that I am fine. 

Next I visited Dr. Hema. The results of my tests were about the same as previously. My M-spike number was 0.2. That's about as close to zero, meaning cured, as I seem to be able to get without actually being cured. I feel perfectly fine and the doctor and I have no reason to believe that my lymphoma will ever be an issue again.

Although we pretty much knew the answer before we walked in, it is always great to hear it from the doctors mouth. As is our custom, we celebrated with a nice lunch and a few high-fives!

In spite of these issues, I feel pretty lucky. At my age, several of my contemporaries from my high school days have not survived. I feel like I am doing quite well.

Thank you again, gentle reader, for your well-wishes.