tiddly

what started as a blog about nursing seems to have quickly transpired into a blog about caretaking - about being a caretaker to my dad (who, for some reason, my family calls tiddly).

last time i wrote, tiddly was getting his pacemaker/defibrillator placed. i was in the waiting room, typing away, wasting away hour upon hour, pretending not to worry as my mom and sister paced the halls, ate grilled cheese sandwiches (ok, i had one too), and shed a few tears.

of course, as if the morning wasn't "exciting" enough, a fire alarm went off mid-procedure. as an employee of the hospital, i am used to calls overhead, fire drills, and irritating alarms; we tend to ignore them, as most are not real. but, when the halls started to buzz with people evacuating the area, i couldn't help but wonder... what the hell?!? is this is a real fire? how do you evacuate operating rooms, when wires are laced delicately through veins and into heart muscle?

the surgery ended well, without the need to evacuate the area. thank god! the new leads (wires) were placed successfully, threaded to the most important organ in the body - the heart. and my dad was discharged the following morning (of course, not without one scare and threat to re-open him up to thread a wire a few millimeters closer to cardiac muscle, to get better capture, whatever that means!). one more scary procedure done. one step closer to feeling better. phew...

well, tiddly is not an easy man... never has been, never will. he found himself back in the hospital by friday, two days after his "release." a new problem developed. a new arrhythmia. it is the fault of no one. just a string of bad luck. STAT labs were drawn. multiple EKGs printed and read. a chest x-ray completed to verify placement of the leads. ultrasounds to ensure no bleeding around the heart. interrogation of the pacemaker to see what the "bleep" was going on. and visits by doctors. lots of doctors.

atrail tachycardia - the newest hiccup in the road to improved cardiac function and overall health! damn those erratic and excitable cardiac cells.

the cure - amiodarone. a new drug. one my dad has been on in the past. one that of course, comes with side effects and intolerance. amiodarone, after prolonged use, causes hypothyroidism in my dad. which in turn, leads to worsening congestive heart failure symptoms. blah! what a fine balance! a chemical art to get the perfect equation!

tiddly's current state of health...

he's ok. he continues to challenge the nurses and doctors. he makes us all laugh. he takes pills. he does more than we think he should. and he continues to beat the odds. as of march 5th, tiddly has lived 12 years more than he should have. it was 12 years ago that my dad suffered a massive heart attack and underwent seven bypasses.

as of now, my dad is 100% paced. that means, 100% of the time, his pacemaker is telling his heart to beat. 100% of the time, wires help my dad's ventricles pump blood to the body more efficiently than before.

right now, things are ok. we are going to lunch.