TheBanyanTree: Heart update from Jan 31

[Laura]

I *did* warn you there would be updates...

Larry went to see the cardiologist on Tuesday, Jan. 31st.  
(Sorry - the electrophysiologist.)  Indeed, Larry has a 
'short circuit' in his heart called AV nodal re-entrant 
supra ventricular tachycardia. (Say THAT three times fast.  
Hell, just try saying it three times!)  About 10% of the 
population has it, nearly all of them will have trouble 
occasionally, and as they get older, it will get worse.  
This condition can be cured with a "simple" (the dr's 
words, not mine!) procedure.  

The proceedure, called Radio Frequency Ablation, uses a 
tiny catheter with a platinum tip, which is inserted 
through a vein into the heart, and radio waves are used to 
heat the tip, which is then used to burn the tiny portion 
of the heart which has the extra nerve path.  The dr was 
very encouraging - in the nearly 1500 times he has 
performed the Radio Frequency Ablation, only one patient 
had enough complications to require a pacemaker, and in 
that case a pacemaker was inevitable anyway.  The 
statistics are:  95% one time cure, 5% cure on the second 
try.  Yup, that's right - CURE. Dr. Gallagher said the 
reason he has as much as 5% that have to have a second 
proceedure is because he prefers to err on the side of 
caution.  If he's not positive he's in the right place, 
he'll wait and try again after observing the results.  
Less than 0.5% may require a pacemaker if the AV node is 
compromised.  (THAT is the reason for the caution!  Makes 
sense to me.)

Larry is scheduled for his RFA on Thursday, March 2nd.  He 
will go in on Wednesday for bloodwork.  Thursday, we will 
head for the hospital, to wait for his turn.  Once the 
proceedure has been done, they will observe him for 
minimum of 4 hours to be sure he recovers from the 
procedure, then he will be admitted overnight and released 
in the morning.  I didn't think to ask, and the dr didn't 
volunteer it, but I suspect the stents have something to 
do with the overnight stay.

I don't know what I was expecting, but apparently the 
entrance wounds for the catheters (one goes in the jugular 
and one in the femoral) are a mere millimeter in length.  
Heck, he won't even have any stitches to fuss about.  
And, he can go back to work (no heavy lifting) after 3 
days.  THREE days.  The miracles of modern medicine.  I 
mean, you'd think that for a "heart procedure", he'd get 
at least a WEEK off of work, ya' know?

:)  So far, so good....

-- 
Laura
wolfljshus at insightbb.com
http://home.insightbb.com/~wolfljshus/index.html