Friday, June 21, 2013

Strange pieces of metal living inside me

I'm back from the hospital after staying overnight.  They put a balloon in and then a stent because the main artery was occluded by 75%.  Zach says that congestive heart failure saved my life.  Now I know he's right because that could have caused me a heart attack at any time in the near future.  Not a maybe either.  A definite.

I didn't knit a lot but I got tons of compliments on the Monkey socks I was knitting.  I think I did more un-knitting than knitting because my mind wasn't too clear after all that messing around with my heart.

It's so good to be home!  I have to take it easy for the next few days...no driving or lifting anything heavier than a gallon of milk.  So I'm planning on lots of knitting and watching the inventory in my dvr.  Plus the dvds I started:  Babylon 5 and Farscape. 

Next week they'll contact me to set up cardiac rehab but fortunately I'll be able to do that closer to home.  It's 3 days a week so driving up to Fond du Lac that often would really tire me out.  Plus this leaves me more time to do other things, like cooking from scratch and working on my crafts.  I pretty much have to cook from scratch anymore because I can only have 1500mg of sodium a day and nearly everything except fresh fruits and veg have some sodium in them.  Even chicken breasts (separate from the whole chicken) have had chicken broth injected into them.  So I'm going with my plan to eat vegetarian.  I was able to eat vegetarian while there because they had room service where you ordered your own food.  I had the best veggie burger ever there and some low-sodium tomato soup and raw veggies for supper and a low-cholesterol egg omelet with mushrooms, green peppers, onions and tomatoes for breakfast.  No cheese.  I'm hungry all the time but losing the weight is much more important than feeling full.  I'll have to be determined about this because I know the enthusiasm will wane eventually. 

I have to keep records of my daily sodium content, daily fluid content (8 cups of fluid a day), my daily weight in case I start to retain fluids and my blood pressure.  I had to buy a blood pressure cuff so I can keep track.  I'm also considering buying something in the way of exercise equipment.  Not a treadmill because we just don't have room and since this would be for those times when it's not possible to walk outside, which I can't do right now in my neighborhood because it's too steep.  I do have videos and dvds so that is a possibility as well, but a stationary bike still might be the better option since it will fit in my bedroom and I can use it when others are around.    I just need to think it out.

I'm feeling a bit sore today.  I didn't have any pain in the hospital but walking around the store to get to the pharmacy brought out some soreness.  I'm on Plavix as well as a baby aspirin a day.  The dr prescribed the baby aspirin but I already have some and it's cheaper to buy them off the shelf and there's no difference (according to the pharmacist).  It's $5 for a single 30 day prescription and under $4 for a bottle of 100 enteric coated baby aspirin.  Way cheaper if I just cut a regular aspirin into four pieces.

Well, I think I'm going to finish up online and lie down for a bit.  I do still get tired and I'm a bit achy but I am looking forward to getting better.

2 comments:

AthertonCA said...

Kathy,

I hope that the balloon angioplasty and stent placement result in you feeling much better.

Are you on Ravelry?

Take care,

Tamara

Kathy said...

Thanks, Tamara. I do feel a bit better already. Certainly have more energy although it's not a huge amount more. Enough to tell, though.

I'm on Ravelry but I rarely post there anymore. My Ravelry name is kawaski.