Saturday, July 23, 2016

On Second Thought, Don't Do That



A few days after being released from my last hospital stay I had an office visit with a new cardiologist in Gotham City. I haven’t given him a nickname yet, I’ll come up with something after I get to know him a little better. The visit went well and I was satisfied with his understanding of my multiple problems. The following day featured a blood test and an office visit with Dr. Whoosh’s NP, which went well also. I’m now scheduled to resume my frequently postponed chemotherapy on August 1st.

The next afternoon I received a telephone call from one of Dr. Whoosh’s nurses telling me that they had consulted with the new cardiologist and between the two of them had decided to try stopping a couple of my medications due to a high value on my creatinine level on the blood test. Remember that my last hospital visit involved a week of tinkering with my medicines to get me back on my feet. The result of those changes had me feeling much better and I had resumed losing weight. Well, they’re the doctors, so I stopped two of my medications.

Overnight I gained 8.5 pounds and my blood pressure fell into the basement. After playing phone tag with doctors and automated answering machines for a couple of hours, I was told what I sort of knew already. Resume taking the medicines! About 24 hours later, I’m back on track having lost 2.5 of the 8.5 I gained (losing is always harder than gaining). My blood pressure is still a little low but trending upwards towards normal.

Medicine is not an exact science…

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