I've just rung off on a telephone consult with my cardiologist and he is satisfied it is safe to discharge me back to the GP with the understanding if my daily slight improvement begins to drop off or if I feel I'm deteriorating I'm to be sent straight back to him. BONUS: he's taking me off the 'high-risk' list as he feels I can be trusted to maintain strict hygiene and social distancing to avoid contracting Covid-19!
I feel as though I've won a lottery or a marathon. It's been a bit of a long slog (since March 2019). I still have angina but now it's called 'stable with normal coronaries'. I still have Rheumatic Heart Syndrome with 'trivial' aortic valve scarring that will be monitored with annual scans and I still have minimal pericardial effusion (he feels is now permanent so the minor residual wheezing will likely never go away) that will also want monitoring at the annual scan. I still have recurrent pericarditis but the acute flare I've been coping with since last year is now declared officially cleared.
But all in, I haven't felt this well in decades (thank-you, thank-you, thank-you Bisoprolol 1.25mg+300mg aspirin, thank-you!). Every day slight improvement and I'm thinking I'll be at near-optimal fitness again by mid-summer. I'm a 63yo lady and frankly just now I feel 25 again, WOO HOO!!
I think my first outing now I'm off the self-isolation restriction list will be to take my exercise walk off my property and combine it with the once daily permitted visit down the near-by supermarket - for a lottery ticket!
Final - I'll be keeping up here on the forum. I have no words adequate to the need to describe how supportive and informative this forum and the members (especially the Heart Stars) have been!
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Sunnie2day
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I live in NE Scotland - yesterday was sunny and bright but today dawned dull with a wee threat of rain in those grey clouds. Still, it's definitely Sunnie2Day at my house the now
That’s great news for you and the timing really good. The weather is really nice I am just going for my daily walk along beside the river Ythan. Hope you enjoy your new found youth
This being ill lark definitely makes life a bit of a roller coaster, the lows are grim, but my god, the highs really are something else. A few simple word "I'm discharging you" have such a dramatic effect. Enjoy your day, and good luck with the lottery ticket.
PS - when I was discharged last October, I went and bought a cream cake to celebrate! 🍰
Well done the GP and the cardiology team, really. The GP fast-tracked me and the cardiac team did all the investigations plus actually listened to what I was saying (symptoms, etc). All stars all around, I don't feel I'd be here without all of them working together so well - even, lol, the cardiac nurse who clearly did not like me one bit yet was completely professional in her attention to my heart health.
All I did was log information (BP, pulse, symptoms and when occurring+what seemed to help) and do what they told me - so all credit to them
Well Sunnie2day, that is fantastic news and I am so pleased for you. It is always so good to learn someone is making good progress! Do take care and enjoy your new freedom wisely.
Thank-you, and I do mean to continue on being careful. I will enjoy a wee taste of freedom walking to the supermarket as it is quite close (400 steps there+another 400 home) but after that I plan to get my daily walk in the goat track next to my house, and no further.
I'm lucky enough to live off the main road and after the one trip to the supermarket I will stay off that main street and pavement for the duration.
Freedom used wisely is wonderful, freedom taken as permission to revel in wild abandon is madness - imagine thinking taking a walk through the town centre to be 'wild abandon', what times we live in, eh?!
UPDATE: Apparently my cardiologist had some spare time and used it to review patient notes. End result for me is he's rescinded my back-to-GP discharge in favour of keeping me on - after the pandemic he feels he must investigate for microvascular angina (MVA).
I'm seeing this as a good thing. At least he's kept to his decision to remove me from the 'high-risk shielding group' so I'm not worried about that happening again.
No but I'm thinking it's got to be a stress MRI, it's the only thing available up here, I think, (there may be something in Glasgow but I'm really hoping to avoid that) and even then it's my understanding the results aren't always clear using that.
I think I've read the acetylcholine angiogram is only available at one lab Down South (I could be wrong about that, Glasgow perhaps has the tech?) so I'm not convinced going through the MRI is going to be helpful. But my cardiologist has 'dog with bone' syndrome, lol - he's got his teeth in now and I'm thinking it's going to be another year of 'test and talk' before he's fully happy.
I want to be clear I'm not disrespecting him at all, he's considered one of the best in Scotland according to friends of my late husband I'm still in contact with. They all say if they were in Scotland and needed a top man cardiologist he'd be their no1 go-to. I've been told I'm in good hands and to trust him - so I do.
(Not keen on the 'fun' of a perfusion MRI, though!)
Wow about Glasgow - now I'm going to be down the Internet rabbit hole the rest of the morning reading up on the Golden Jubilee. I don't think my cardiologist would send me there but then again I didn't think he'd rescind my discharge, either.
Yea I had a stress MRI, and it came bk clear. My understanding from MF is that the newer machines can detect it but at the time of my MRI I was worried they would section me if I started prancing around at the back of the scanner in my hospital gown looking for the model and serial number of MRI machine 🤣
I now have the mental image of the person at the other end of the line holding the phone away and looking at it as if to say 'Oh please, not another pain-in-the-backsider, please!'.
(forehead smack) Yes, that's probably exactly what has happened - he read those then went back through patient notes and mine leaped out of the pile at him. It's 'funny' as when he discharged me back to the GP I did ask 'So, you've ruled out MVA and VA, then?' and he said he had.
If I have it, I have it - but I respond very well to the occasional GTN spritz, my very low-dose Bisoprolol (1.25mg) works wonderfully and until this recent heat wave I'd not had angina in quite a while. I'm not convinced but I don't have the training and experience he has so I'm certainly not going to argue it.
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I live in NE Scotland - yesterday was sunny and bright but today dawned dull with a wee threat of rain in those grey clouds. Still, it's definitely Sunnie2Day at my house the now
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