Now in Albuquerque, I'm scheduled for a phone consult on Monday, the 20th, at 3:00 with Dr. Jose Mendez. He's a cardiologist, not on the faculty (at the University of New Mexico Hospital), who works all over the country, maybe even the world, and, according to the nurse I spoke with, is highly-regarded. She thought his specialty was heart failure, but encouraged me to google him.
I'm going to ask about stem-cell injections, something someone mentioned, and ask all the questions Jim Cooper suggested (Jim was kind enough to send a list) AND see if there are any other pain medications that might help. AND....see what he has to say about the life-expectancy statistics with or without bypass surgery. From what I've read and from what Jim said, bypass surgery relieves symptoms thereby providing the opportunity for a more active (sex!) lifestyle. But it doesn't increase life-expectancy. Three weeks later my arm STILL hurts from the angiogram (transradial catheterization)....NOTHING compared to what happens in bypass surgery.
Improving quality of life seems like a good thing to me. When my mother-in-law married her second and much older husband, we were certain she would outlive him. He had bypass surgery, golfed into his mid 80’s and still enjoys an occasional Manhattan. I didn’t much want to know about his sex life, but he’s still kickin’: and she’s been gone for awhile.
ReplyDeleteImproved quality of life, as ANY cat will attest, is what it's all about....from the get-go. (cats' motto: It could ALWAYS be better!)
DeleteThanks for the empirical evidence re your mother-in-law's 2nd husband. Any chance he'd accept a phone call so I could hear of his experience directly?