Best If Used By 2012

Continued....

I had a dentist appointment that morning. I always get an 8:00 appointment so it doesn’t break up the day. It was a good visit and I had no cavities.

 I walked into the shop at work around 9:30 and my shop mate asked if I had talked to my doctor. He said they had called the office, my parents, and my sister. Not sure why they didn’t call the house but seems everyone was now calling the office. This was back before I had a cell phone. I returned their call. I was prepared to be on hold but as soon as I gave my name I was transferred to my doctor’s nurse. “ I don’t want to alarm you but we need you to come to the office immediately” she says.

Major fail on the not alarming me part.

 It was a good 45 minute drive from the shop to the Doctors office so I had lots of time to wonder what was up. I really didn’t have a clue what was going on but when I got there I received some of the best service I had ever gotten in that office. I saw my doctor within 5 minutes. Things calmed down from there. He said that they had determined I had a fractured sternum and because of the force required to break it they wanted to check the heart and aorta for any type of damage. He mentioned something about Princess Diana’s death and something else suposedly relevent that I didn’t hear because I was thinking, that’s the only time she and I will ever been included in the same conversation. He said they had me scheduled for a CAT scan and an ECG over at the hospital.

 At the hospital they had me lay on the CT table and gave me a shot of contrast dye. Wow, that was some warm stuff, and made me want to pull up some covers and take a nap. After that I went to the ECG guy. I laid on my side and thought wow his Ultragel was cold. He hooked me up and started the scan. I watched the screen and all the colors indicating blood flow. Is that good or bad?? He left the room and came back with a doctor. After the test the doc came to the room and told me they had found something not related to the wreck and sent me back to my doc. Oh.. the suspense.

I went back to see my doc. He gave me some drugs and said don’t lift more than 20 lbs and made me an appointment with a cardiologist. More suspense. Will somebody tell me something?

The first thing the cardiologist did was their own ECG.

More flashing colors and funny heart pumping sounds. During the exam the ECG tech looked me square in the eye and said I was very lucky that girl hit me. OK, that didn’t sound good. The cardiologist explained I have Dilated Cardiomyopathy(enlarged heart). It’s the thing ball players walk off the field and fall over with. My EF(ejection fraction) was 10-15% where normal would be 50-60%. That is a measure of how efficient your heart is pumping. He gave me more pills and reiterated not to lift more than twenty pounds. Twenty pounds?? At the time I was working out regularly and was easily lifting 250 plus pounds. He also offered to put me on permanent disability. What?? I feel fine. Well, I did till they filled me with drugs. That has slowed me down a bit.

When I got home I made the mistake of looking it up on line. I found some support forums that were kinda depressing and one website that said the mortality rate was 50% in 5 yrs and 75% in 10 yrs.

This year my warranty may have expired but I’m still working and feeling fine.