Heart & Stroke - Part II

This is the second of three parts. Most of the text below has been lifted from my website's blog.

• 2003-mid-December
  I get my heart ultrasound done. I mention to my Betty that I had bad vibes about the visit. The techs initially said that I should hear back from my doc within five work days, longer if things were normal ("no news is good news."). To tease some info out of them, I re-stated the five day turnaround time as I was leaving, with an inflection in my voice, but got only a hesitant "you'll hear back from your doctor."
  
  The visit included an unexpected "bubble test", which is essentially the injection of a saline solution containing bubbles into a vein on the arm to see if there's a heart problem. IV number one, ouch!!!! If the bubbles migrate from the right chamber to the left, it would be visible on the ultrasound device and indicate the presence of a hole. Of course I didn't know any of this at the time. During the procedure, one of the techs mentioned something like "was too aneurysmal" or "too aneurysmic" to the other tech, which sounded about as positive as "overly malignant". When the exams were over I could tell by the main technologist's body english that something was up.
  
  Later the same day, I get a CT neck and a CT brain scan. They inject dye into me. IV number two, ouch! I am told that the dye makes me feel warm all over, and gives the sensation of wanting to go pee. True on both counts. It's pretty neat, actually, since you can feel the stuff makes its way through your circulatory system in a matter of seconds.
  In the picture above, dressed in "Gaelic" colours, I am at the VGH parking garage about to go home. You can just make out the bandages near each elbow.
  


• 2004-January-13
  Well, the neurologist confirms what I already knew, that I indeed had had a stroke. This is three months after the incident. The CT brain scan shows that the area by my right temple was taken out. Lucky for me, it's not an important part of the brain; had it been my left side, the clot would've affected my speech. There are no visible clots, the arteries look fine, my cholesterol level was much better, where it should be (not that it was way high or anything) thanks to the aspirin and Lipitor pills. Something or other in my liver is elevated because of the meds. I'll have to get another blood test to monitor it. If it doesn't come down, I might have to ease off the Lipitor.
  
  Turns out I have a hole in my heart, what is known as a patent foramen ovale, or PFO. The specialist said it so quickly that it took Betty's and my combined recollection to piece together what the diagnosis was, and some sleuthing on the internet. It's pronounced PAYTent forAYmen oVALly. As fetuses, we all start off with a hole in the heart, but I guess mine didn't close up after birth. PFO is very common, about one in five people have it. The current belief is that it explains a lot of the historically "unexplainable [cryptogenic] strokes", and plays a role in the extended air flight deep-vein thrombosis clots and strokes ("economy-class syndrome").
  
  Mr. Neurology schedules me for a down-my-throat echocardiogram to check out the geometry of the opening, and for more bloodwork to see if I have a clotting disorder [turns out to be 7 vials' worth of the red stuff]. If the opening is problematic, I can elect to have surgery, which apparently takes only an hour or two to plug the hole—no cutting required!

[continued in next posting, Heart & Stroke - Part III]