The Next Six Months

The next six months were torture. Not, due to the implant, but rather the fact that I never seemed to be getting better. I called my doctor at one month and two months post op and he stated, "Give the implant time. You might have some residual shunting, but it will go away once tissue growth has occurred." The luxury at working at a hospital is the availability to equipment. My oxygen level was still dropping into the 80s(normal 92-100) and my heart rate would shoot up to 130 just standing. In addition when I walked it would sore to 170-200. I was exhausted from my heart pumping so hard to try and compensate for my low oxygen level. I was forgetful and always winded. Sometimes I would have to take an extra breath in the middle of a sentence. Then at 3 months, 3 and 1/2months, and 4 months post op I had 3 TIA(trans ischemic attacks). AKA mini strokes. In my case I lost vision anywhere between 30min.-1 hour. My first one I had slurred speak with the vision loss. How is a TIA treated? Just observation. Most of the time a person recovers completely from them. I was already on a blood thinner. TIAs are mostly an indicator of something bigger to come. Of coarse I called my doctor and a TEE was performed. He stated, "It looked fine. Just a little shunting which would resolve." I completely understand why he wanted to wait. Sometimes it takes as long as one year to fully close. But, what he failed to remember is that all my TEEs were performed laying flat. That was when my defect tended to be more closed. When I sat up or walked it was still bursting open. He would never see this unless he performed an echo sitting up or walking. He wasn't in my body. He didn't know how hard my daily life was. By month 5 I had enough. My oxygen level was now as low as 66%(that's right). My heart rate was always soaring. I was having numerous cyanotic events(blue face, fingers and feet). Lastly, I was wheezing. After speaking to my primary cardiologist and a pulmonologist it was concluded I might have pulmonary hypertension. Not good news! Pulmonary Hypertension develops mainly when your heart has had enough. When it has been working too hard! There is no cure for pulmonary hypertension. If you are lucky, you might make it to a lung/ heart transplant.
I called my doctor and told him my symptoms. I also stated enough was enough and I was at the end of my rope. He quickly had me meet up with a transplant specialist who dealt with pulmonary hypertension on a regular bases. I couldn't believe all this. I was now becoming mentally drained. Although through all of this I was not anxious nor depressed. How? It's called a very strong family support and an unbelievable faith.
To test for pulmonary hypertension they put a catheter in my neck and threaded it through my heart called a swan ganz. It measures the pressures of your heart. They also placed an arterial line in my wrist(pictures to follow) which would continuously measure a exact amount of oxygen in my blood. I had to exercise with these line in on a bike. Oh and I forgot they strapped an echo to my chest during this test too. I do wish I had pictures! I feel so blessed that I did not have pulmonary hypertension. I was showing signs of developing a form of secondary pulmonary hypertension. Which, in the cause of secondary pulmonary hypertension once the main problem is corrected early enough then it will resolve itself. SHEEEEW! What they did see was that I was still significantly shunting. In fact I was shunting more than my original echos. Crazy Huh! Only me! So, I was given absolutely wonderful news and bad news at the same time. What a mind blower! To fix my still shunting heart I would have to have open heart! Errrghhhh!