"A miracle drug is any drug that will do what the label says it will do."

"A miracle drug is any drug that will do what the label says it will do." ~Eric Hodgins

Day 94

Part 1: Drug-induced stress test

Ativan is not a miracle drug -- at least not for me. And if it did work, OMG -- I can not imagine how impossible it would have been to get through the drug-induced stress test and PET/CT scan!!

I dutifully took the little pill an hour before the procedure and kept repeating to myself "you are going to relax. This is no big deal. The stress inducer is not going to create a heart attack. The machine is not going to be claustrophobic..."

Oh well. I did survive, but with lots of help from good vibes from friends and a cool tech named Erik. And in spite of the less than cool tech Steve!

John and I walked into the facility -- the whole building was pretty impressive for the East Bay. It was in Walnut Creek/Pleasant Hill area and is a huge cancer research center. We found our suite and walked in and a reasonably competent person checked us in while Erik jovially greeted us. A few minute wait and then he came to get me to start this particular journey.

Lovely changing room with a very cushy recliner. Amazing. Reasonably attractive fake flowers and not-too-bad mass produced wall decor. A hospital gown that actually fit!! And he brought me a big cup of water (no doubt to aid in hydration for IV insertion) and told me to change, drink it all and meet him in "the room" with my empty cup.

"The room" had the scanner -- rather like an MRI. Long, narrow conveyor belt -- and Erik had be climb aboard. It was all I could do not to run out of there screaming... it was obvious this was not going to be the two four-foot square panels circulating around me taking pictures as the cardiologist described -- it was going to be a ride into a tomb.

Bolsters for head and knees were put in place -- thankfully, else I don't know how I would have been able to lay flat for half an hour on my back. Erik inserts the IV (getting it right the first time -- yay) and tells me all about what's going to happen. I let him know(many times I confess) that I really didn't want to be there and that the Ativan didn't do a damn thing for me. He cracked a bunch of jokes trying to help me relax. I ask him if my head really has to go into that great big machine and of course he admits it really does. He also promises to be in the room with me all the time he can (which was about 95% of the time and he did come through with that one!).

The first part of the scan is with the heart at rest -- so all he injected the first time was the tracer. We start the ride. I feel like a lamb going to the slaughter. And then my head goes into the machine and it stops. Yikes. I hear Erik's voice in my ears (great stereo inside the machine) telling me I'm doing great, blah, blah, blah... just a few more minutes. Thankfully before he started my "ride" he gave me a panic button to push and promised he'd pull me out if I couldn't handle it. I did believe he would -- I doubt Steve would have. He just wanted to get the job done and go home, you know the type.

I remembered Fern's trick and kept my eyes closed and tried to listen to the music -- Frank Sinatra. Finally the first part of the first half is done and the conveyor belt moves me further into the machine, taking my head back to the room and locking my torso in the machine. Again, I almost came unglued, but gold old Erik came back and joined my head at the back of the room. I joked about the music and said I wish I'd brought my own and he asked me what I wanted to listen to. Eric Clapton came to mind and sure enough he put Eric on the PA system!!

This part lasted about 10 minutes. Next came the scary part -- the drug to stress me. Erik warned me it would feel like a panic attack but promised it would only be for about 5 minutes. We'd spoken earlier about this also and he shared how much better this new drug was than the old protocol with adenosine. I truly don't think I'd have been able to handle that. He said it was insidious -- it took several minutes to start to affect you and then kept building and building up the stress affects and once they hit their peak they lasted about half an hour. The new protocol hit me within a minute of the injection. The worst part was breathing -- it felt like an asthma attack. Accompanied with a hot flash, some gas, and a little bit of a rapid heartbeat. Thankfully it lasted less than 5 minutes.

The conveyor pushed me back to the beginning and then repeated the same process as the at rest process. I tried to rock out to Eric as best I could. I opened my eyes when my head was in the machine and a disassociated me thought it was kind of cool in a space wars kind of way -- big white dome with lots of flashing lights including a series that counted down when the machine was going to move my head out and my torso in. I focused on that countdown to keep calm.

Finally it was all over. Yay. I get the results next week on Thursday. It was really hard to get up after lying flat that long - my back and my head hurt. The guys were obviously used to that as both were ready to help. Erik told me to have a diet pepsi if my headache didn't clear soon, so I broke my caffeine-fast of three months and had one about an hour later. It was like magic -- instant headache elimination.



Part 2 - Sleep Study Update

I met with the sleep doctor this afternoon. The data was fascinating. No question but that I don't know how to sleep -- right there on chart after chart. Someone without sleep apnea stops breathing 0-5 times per hour. I stop breathing almost 90 times per hour -- amazing!! I asked him how I could possibly be reasonably well rested and not display all of the symptoms of someone with such severe (his word) sleep apnea and he said that some people simply have the drive to sleep -- clearly I must be one of them. And I do love sleeping!!

I was afraid I might have a battle on my hands getting a bi-pap instead of a c-pap machine. As soon as I told him how I felt when I woke up coughing (rather like I was suffocating) he said he'd request the bi-pap. Yay. In case you're into the numbers on this thing, he noted that I didn't get into REM until the air flow was at 11. He suspects my optimal place will be 12. He ordered a smart machine for me -- one that measures how I'm doing and self adjusts throughout the night. He ordered a top setting of 14 to give the machine proper flexibility. Whatever that means, but it does seem to make sense. It has a card in it that I'll bring in when next I see him in September with data he can download. Cool. I love technology!!

The machine provider called this afternoon and I have an appointment Monday morning to pick it up. So Monday night will start the 6-week countdown to the earliest date I can have my surgery -- that would thus be September 21. Wow.

Hopefully I passed the stress test. After I see the cardiologist next week I'll call the surgeon's office and with any luck we can proceed to the next steps of final insurance authorization and truly schedule the surgery. The other little wrinkles are my kidneys -- I moved the retest to next week (Tuesday) so I could hydrate a little longer. I need to have a couple of other things tested too for the sleep doctor -- apparently my legs move while I sleep and that could be due to iron or B12 deficiencies so he wants to test those. My last couple of iron tests were a little low, so we'll see.

Amazingly enough, it seems that all of the pre-requisite procedures are all wrapping up finally. I can't help but wonder if a fork in the road will be presenting itself or if the path will continue on as it has so far. With any luck I'll know in another week or so.