On the way to Santa Clara, I read portions of a book called Christ the Healer. It talked about God's compassion, willingness and power to heal, which was very encouraging. I'm fully convinced He will give me a new heart, one way or another.
The night before the test, Adam and I took advantage of the kid-free time and went to see Interstellar. Wow! What a great, thought provoking movie!
When I went to sleep the night before the test, and when I woke up in the early morning hours to pump, I thought about how wonderful it would be if God chose to heal me that morning, so that when they looked at my heart during the catheterization, they'd say, "Wait a minute! Do we have the right patient? Why are we doing this? This heart is completely normal!"
When they took me back for the test, it was chilly in the room and one of the nurses took a blanket from the warmer and placed it over the operating table, and then put a few more warm blankets on top of me. Another nurse covered my hair with a turban to keep it clean in case of any blood spatter. I said I felt like I was at a spa, and she said that was the first time she'd heard the cath lab called a spa! I said I was just trying to make the best of the situation. Even funnier, when Dr. Parekh came in to begin the procedure, she said, "With that turban on your head you look ready for a day at the spa!" The nurses started joking about getting me some cucumbers for my eyes, or painting my toenails during the procedure.
Genevieve, the medical student from Stanford, came in to observe the procedure, and Dr. Parekh offered her the chance to inject the lidocaine and insert the catheter to my neck vein. Unfortunately, she had trouble with getting the catheter in properly, and after three unsuccessful tries, Dr. Parekh had to step in. Dr. Parekh even had a little trouble and said she felt resistance in my vein almost as if there were scar tissue there, which is very odd because I've never had procedures or injuries of any kind in that part of my body as far as I know.
They took their measurements by moving the catheter around, inflating and deflating a balloon, and flushing the line with saline. It provoked some palpitations which tickled and made me cough a bit.
The good news is that the pressures in my heart and lungs are normal. The pulmonary hypertension I had in May is officially gone! Praise God for healing!
The other measurements they took were to determine how much blood flows out of my heart with each beat. There are two ways they can measure or estimate that amount. One involves calculations based on the saturation of oxygen in my blood at different points, and the other involves flushing the line with saline that is a different temperature than my blood and observing how long it takes for the saline to move all the way through the heart by tracking the temperature change. I don't recall which method yielded which result, but one method showed a ratio of amount of blood pumped in one minute to my total body area (Cardiac Index or CI) of 1.8, and the other method showed a CI of 2.1.
For comparison, a normal heart has a CI of 2.6 and above, and CI at 1.8 or below is often associated with lack of blood flow to vital organs, a condition called cardiogenic shock. My heart is not working well at all.
The low CI explains all of my symptoms. In fact, with a CI that low, a clinician might expect me to be doing worse than I am. However, my blood work continues to show that all my other body systems are functioning normally... no kidney failure, no liver failure. I credit my Jehovah Rapha for protecting my organs and allowing me to live a full of life as possible while I'm waiting for the new heart He will give me.
Dr. Parekh said there is nothing more they can do for me medically, except to get me on the transplant list at Stanford, Cedars-Sinai or both.
That's fine with me because "nothing more we can do" is exactly the situation where God has the most opportunity to show his power and glory.
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