Technical Difficulties, Part III

Hello. Just a little note to say I’m putting the Hopper on short hiatus until the beginning of next week.

I have to go back in for a little surgery on my pulmonary vein. This will be the sixth time doctors have been inside my heart since November 2007. It will be the eighth time I’ve had a “surgical procedure” done in a year-and-a-half. I think. I’m noticing that I’m starting to lose track of the exact count.

Anyway, it should be less risky than the surgery I had almost a year ago to the day. It seems, according to my cardiologist, that the tissue around the stent in my left superior pulmonary vein is growing over the hole, impeding blood flow from lung to heart. Hence, fatigue, the feeling of constantly being out-of-breath, and possible damage to the lung (I’ve coughed up blood last week). My doctors will go into my heart via catheter and inflate a small balloon at the site of the constriction to open it up. I’ll be under for four hours, five tops.

If you’re curious to this whole pulmonary vein stenosis thing, here is the up-close-and-personal details of the surgery I had this time last year. Another post, here, details the frustration with this crazy thing I have.

The plan is to go in to the hospital early Wednesday morning. They’ll probably put me under sometime in the afternoon, and I’ll overnight there. If all goes well, like it did last year, my wife will probably pick me up around noon on Thursday and drive me home. I should only need a day or two to recover. So I’m going to take it real easy, and not post anything until Sunday or Monday.

Have a great weekend, y’all!