July 9, 2020
ThursdayTelehealth Appointment: I had my regular cardiac checkup appointment with Dr. Wozniak set since September, 2018 so when our appointment rolled around this time the staff over there was wanting to schedule it online, which was fine with me.
Wozniak's practice uses the same tele-health app that I use for my counseling practice (Doxy.me) so it was interesting to me to be on the "patient" end of the conversation for the first time. The connection with his office seemed to have more picture quality issues than I usually do using the same system: picture broke up some and volume crackled, making us finally opt for switching to phones set on speaker.
Not much has changed since Dr. Wozniak's last meeting with me: still have ankle swelling and shortness of breath ~ from his perspective; "valvular heart disease" with "left carotid bruit". We agreed on the following plan:
- I'm going to experiment with holding off on my Norvasc for a week because it can cause ankle and leg swelling.
- Watch my BP closely, since Norvasc is a BP med and see if swelling goes down
- Schedule another echocardiogram in the next couple months, and
- Meet again in 3 months
The Interface: One of the things that is getting more important as I age is the interface between my organs and my diseases, as shown in this simple chart. Wozniak had read the materials I sent him about the connection between pulmonary hypertension and HHT (That material is posted on Jack's HHT Adventure)Ongoing Medical Issues & COVID-19
I’ve been thinking about this whole New Normal as though it were the backdrop of a sci fi story where an inept national bureaucracy misses the importance of a seemingly virile sickness because it is so wrapped up it's own misappropriations and meaningless policies. In fact, the government thinks of the growing epidemic as a helpful distraction that can be used like the curtain hiding the Great Oz. A certain portion of the scientific community assesses the epidemics as a real threat and yet the Machiavellian leader has convinced the population that the evidence need to support scientific proof is too complicated and intellectual to get immediate results. Meanwhile he works his evil on stirring up public distrust in the "fake media" to keep the public from looking too closely at his own shifty financial shenanigans and questionable “executive orders”.
So the epidemic grows inside the lungs and hearts of the population until it Is becomes a pandemic: too large to have any realistic short term solution. sMeanwhile the little horn-crowned virus is chugging away at the innards of humanity, rallying the body’s own immune system to overreact and convince the cytokines to have a hyper response and attack other healthy tissues of the body until the blood gushes out, pressure drops, and catastrophic organ failure occurs. Unfortunately, the group that is most likely to blindly follow the libelous leader is also the group he has convinced that the pandemic isn’t so serious and that 99% of those who catch it will have no real medical issues with the virus.
All of the above is immersed in the backdrop of our New Normal and acted out alongside our much more mundane toils and troubles: replacing broken toilet seats, scheduling Doctor’s appointments… “No physical meeting; we’re only doing tele-medicine appointments right now. No, you cannot see the grand baby… we’re observing emotional distancing this week.
“We need whipped cream!”
“Put it on the list; I’m only going to the store once this week, scheduled for next Tuesday morning at 7:30 am, when there’ll only be three other old people in the store.”
As I was pondering this more interesting perspective of what seems, on the surface a very depressing scenario, I thought about another grand headache this pandemic effects.
It is the worrisome state of being an old fart, high risk, immune suppressed, sequestered person who has to put all their ongoing age-related maladies on hold until the pandemic wanes or disappears (“DT”).
• I have had to put off cataract surgery when the COVID-19 graduated to a pandemic.
• My 6 month kidney transplant checkup was rescheduled into “the future”
• I have some new skin colorings that I would like my dermatologist to look at (maybe I can send her a picture)
• I need some dental work that I am putting off… (my favorite dentist retired)
• I need a re-surgery on a Dupuytren’s Contracture that was done about 10 years ago
• I am overdue on a colonoscopy and my favorite colon doc retired so I have to trust someone new up there
• We had planned to go up to Dallas this summer to meet with the folks at the HHT Center at Southwestern Hospital to see if they can suggest better treatment or ideas for my Liver issues. (I want a second opinion on the connections between liver shunts and HHT)… and that trip is off the table until the pandemic subsides.
• So it goes...
And that's how it appears to me today... more coming, I'm sure.
