changes

Cardiologist visit today. I went with him. Second time he's ever agreed that I go with him. Absolutely shocked at the number of couples in the waiting room. Liked the doctor just fine. She thinks he has already had a heart attack. cardiac catheterization scheduled and an echocardiogram scheduled. She talked about the dye causing additional damage to the kidneys including kidney failure. She gave us the worst case scenarios - I will hope for the best case. Most likely, he will need to have bypass surgery done. She proposed that he see the neurosurgeon before doing the cath.

She explained to him that this is genetic. His dad has heart problems. There is nothing he could have done to prevent this. But the path he chose of not taking good care of himself brought it on sooner than it might have been and now that choice was "snapping him in the butt." She told him that he has to eat right and loose weight. No other option. He seemed to listen. Tonight he ate a salad.

She was tough, firm, and fair. I hope he will listen. And because I went, he can't tell me something different. When I mentioned spinal stenosis, he said he didn't have that, only a narrowing of the column. So she started reading out of his medical record and quoted, "major spinal stenosis". Once again....did he forget, never "hear" the other doctor, just in denial? Hard to say. But she "got it" almost immediately and started asking him even more questions.

When he told her about the angina attack he had last May, she asked him how bad it was. He said, pretty bad. She looked at me. I said, "he had diahrrea and vomiting for 2 days afterwards and that he didn't leave the hotel room. She said, "that was bad." She "got it" that the pain is keeping his sugar elevated, that he needs to get his heart fixed before his back, that he needs to get his sugar down to do either, but the pain is keeping it up.

I wonder how much of what she said he will remember in a couple of weeks. If it were me, I'd be scared to death. He seems to be treating it like a normal business day.

He also agreed that I can go with him tomorrow to the endo visit. Major changes in him. Major.

DW