Monday 05/23/2022
Went for an abbreviated walk. Still, over 2 miles for the day. Actually I felt pretty healthy all day. I climbed the stairs from the basement to the ground floor and was thinking, huh, that feels fine. Then, maybe 20 seconds after I got to the top, suddenly I was short of breath for half a minute.
Anyway, at 10am promptly a person from El Camino Hospital called and walked me through a long script of boring questions, mostly confirming my health record. He didn’t really know anything and couldn’t answer the questions that Dr. Margaret had suggested. So I emailed nurse Masket and she answered them a couple of hours later. Yes I will continue to need to take oral antibiotics before a dental procedure; no, I will not need to take an anticoagulant.
And the interesting one: what do they do if arrhythmia develops, do they install a pacemaker right then while I’m anesthetized? I’d have never thought to ask that. I’m not sure I totally understand the answer,
If you develop an arrhythmia that requires a pacemaker we usually leave the pacing wire in and observe you in the ICU to see if your rhythm returns to normal before placing the pacemaker. Many times the arrhythmia disappears.
Dr. Margaret was very impressed with this and said it was very clever of them. I am stuck with how do they get a wire into the left ventricle and “leave it in” when their only access is a catheter up my femoral artery. Long damn wire and it comes out down there next to my balls? Well, I’m just going to go with it. Arrhythmia is not common (remember, less than 1% complications and arrhythmia is only one of them).
After the phone interview I had to get in the car and scoot down to the hospital, and through their parking garage for a drive-up Covid swab. From there I went back up Middlefield to FOPAL and processed four boxes of books. Back to the barn by 3pm.
At 4pm there was to have been an open meeting with CEO Rhonda but that was canceled yesterday: Rhonda has Covid! She will be working from home until she is cleared.
There are a number of cases in the tower now: four residents and three staff currently. We went two years with no cases! And now that we are all double-boosted? Thing is, I absolutely don’t want to catch it before my procedure! So as of yesterday I am eating in my room, and since today’s stop at FOPAL, not going into public places. We can still order for take-out even since the dining room reopened a few months back, and a fair number of people do that often.
Codgerville 