Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Checking Things Out

We had a wonderful vacation in the Mid-Atlantic states -- family, birthday celebrations, shopping, crab eating, sail boat watching, long drives by the sea, lazy afternoons watching the bay while playing games with family.  It was perfect -- except Hubby got really sick just as we were departing on our1190 mile drive across half the country.

Today we have just returned from a doctor's visit that Hubby put off until his return, and to some extent, my fears have been lessened, if not completely abated.  You know it did no good at all to keep pleading that we check in at an emergency room while we were gone. 

Initial diagnosis -- Hubby came down with a severe viral infection just as we were leaving town and age combined with chronic illness, made for a slow recovery.  Now he has antibiotics to help the final return to health,  his lungs sound good and he is not, as I feared throughout the whole trip, in congestive heart failure.

He does however suffer from a very rapid heartbeat -- and in doing an oxygen test to see if walking would create a breathing problem, they instead found that even initial walking sent his heart rate to 120 beats -- and by the time he had gone 50 paces, he was at 150 beats.  Back we go to the heart specialist and in meantime, the GP did a full panel of blood work to check that nothing else was wrong.  

Yesterday we had also done blood work for us both -- but his was just to check the clotting factor - and that is right where it should be.  I don't see our doctor until next week, but I presume I'm going to be told about high cholesterol for which I have NOT been taking the prescribed meds (they make me feel icky -- which is not a medical term but truly describes how I feel when I take them).

I have an update planned to tell about the wonderful time we had on Chesapeake Bay but it may take me several days to compose.  Meanwhile, we are back into the normal groove with all the suitcases but one unpacked, cooking underway, and laundry being sorted.  It's good to get away -- and then again, it's good to get back home.  


2 comments:

Donna. W said...

It's good to have you back.

Margaret said...

Welcome back! I hate the health drama roller coaster, as you know. Patt also has a very high heart rate, but his is because one of his lungs isn't working much!