Saturday, September 24, 2011

heart update

I had another appointment with the cardiologist yesterday.  They ran another echo cardiogram on me, which went pretty well except that by the end I felt like I was going to pass out from holding my breath so many times.    Afterwards I had an appointment with my doctor, in which he looked over the results of the echo cardiogram to see if my heart function had worsened or stayed the same.  Luckily for me it had not worsened, and he even said I had more normal heart beats in a row so hooray for me!  This means that I do not have to take any medication as of now to help increase my heart function.  I did have a few symptoms which were noteworthy to my cardiologist, so despite the good echo cardiogram, I was set up with a ACT heart monitor which I have to wear for the next 30 days.

here I am all hooked up:  four stickers, one transmitter and
the wonderful cell phone...
This consists of four electrodes attached at random places on my chest and upper abdomen, which are attached at the other end to a transmitting device that I have to wear at all times.  Add in the annoying cell phone which must be within 10 ft of me at all times and has to be charged every 6-10 hours, and you can start to see the picture I'm dealing with.  The fancy name for the device is  LifeStar Act Ambulatory Cardiac Telemetry, this website can tell you more about it if you're nosy :).

2 comments:

  1. ewy but I am glad that they will be able to get a good idead of your day to day heart function!

    Also Noah just walked up and exclaimed "that's Riggs!!!" when he saw his ultrasound pic on the left :) I can't wait to cuddle him!

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