Friday, October 29, 2010

An interesting turn of events...

This past Tuesday, Brian received a call from his nurse in IC regarding his test results.

~His glucose and insulin were good ( GREAT NEWS)
~His cholesterol was good ( GREAT NEWS)
~His triglycerides were slighting elevated ( something to watch for)
~An autoimmune test was done to check inflammation in the body. It was slightly elevated. ( noted but nothing to do anything about now).
~His liver enzymes were OK. I guess there are numerous tests done on the liver to evaluate it's overall condition. Some that needed to go down did ( GREAT). Others did not ( Not so great). Some that needed to stay high did ( great). Others did not ( not so great).

Doctor Jolin in IC was going to review again and we are still waiting for an attack to come back so we again have more blood to look at.

Then the nurse began to tell Brian that the doctor reviewed his Cardiology report from his stress test in IC and was concerned. He asked that Brian get reffered to a local Cardiologist for some more testing.

WHAT??????

Brian told his nurse that the technician told him he was in great shape and not to worry. She said that he is in great shape but that doesn't mean there are no concerns with his heart. The technician never should have told him he had nothing to worry about that was not her place to say. Two concerns...at the peak of his exercise ( he ran at the highest incline and the top speed he could for 13 minutes) his blood pressure spiked to 209 over something ( I'm not good at the bottom number). I guess this is pretty high. Even though it evened out quickly, it's a concern. Also, he had 8 sinus wave changes during the 13 minutes on the treadmill. Until Tuesday, I had never heard of sinus waves.

There are 6 sinus wavesin every single heartbeat. They are lettered from p-u. Some waves dip down, others arc up. There are always teeny tiny changes in the waves based on breathing and activity, etc however there were 8 noted changes in the 13 minutes and it's something to look at.

SO, under quite a bit of stress, Bri called me at work on Tuesday to tell me the news. Perhaps its part of the amazing blessings we've felt through all of this ordeal but in my panic as I sat in a kindergarten class with my head down and took in all the information, I remembered that an 8th grade teacher at St. Matt's is a Cardiology nurse on the weekends and the summer. She's also a blog follower and big Fulton Family supporter so I sped down to her classroom and told her I needed to talk to her. She was such a blessing and explained to me what the sinus waves were, why they were a concern and also assured my that we are seeing a specialist because we wanted him to dig deeper, look harder, and not give up on us. That's what he is doing. He's looking at everything, he's seeing things others might not, and he's checking and double checking. Heart condition or not, he's being thorough and that's what we wanted. ( Thank God for people with knowledge and rational thoughts when I had neither).

Brian talked with his primary physician ASAP and we see him Monday evening. The last appointment of the day so Brian can explain all that has happened in the last two months and get the Cardiology referral and perhaps help us get it scheduled much sooner than later. Thursday evening we leave for Philidephia for Brian's best friend's wedding so we lose a few days of possible appointments next week too but we'll have 4 days the next week as well before we head back up to Iowa City.

In the meantime, we again ask for prayers and strength through this. Perhaps its nothing but an overly concerned GI specialist who wants to rule out everything but it could be more. We are grateful to get the news early and be proactive with Brian's health but it's also very hard to hear, very concerning since its the heart, and very frustrating since we really thought his heart was OK.

Again we wait and wonder and ponder why all this is happening now. We hope to have more answers soon. We'll be updating the blog as we learn anything at all.

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