HEALTH ISSUES

To start at the beginning of health issues, I must begin with my cataract surgery on the left eye on Nov. 9. In prepping for the surgery, the prep woman handed me a hospital gown and hospital slippers and told me to go into the bathroom attached to my prep room to change. She said, “Take everything off but your underwear and put on this gown.” So, doing as I was told, I left on my underpants and my bra. When I got back on the gurney the EKG nurse came in and said, “Oh, you left your bra on.” I told her that I have always considered this piece of clothing as underwear. So she said, “No problem, I can do your EKG just fine like you are; I’m really GOOD at this.” So she did the EKG, and guess what, for the first time in my life it came back as ‘abnormal’. The cataract surgery went on as planned, but when I saw my primary care physician, who had just had a normal EKG done about a month earlier, and I told her my story, she said, “You need to go back down to the lab; here’s a prescription for an EKG, so that we can overlay the abnormal one with a normal one." So I did that, and guess what! It came back abnormal. So she made an appt. for me to see a cardiologist to see what was going on. So now, the rest of January is taken up by testing ordered by this heart doctor: I’m scheduled for a Heart and Vascular Carotid Ultrasound; I’m scheduled for an Echocardiogram; I’m scheduled for a Stress Test. When the doctor asked me if I’d ever had a stress test, I told him “Not on purpose”, and he described it as a treadmill on a slant. (I don’t do treadmills on a slant, so I’m not looking forward to taking this test.) I have another appt. 2 days later with this cardiologist to go over all of the results. Meanwhile, any cataract attention on the other eye is put on HOLD.