Week full of shocks.

I have had a week full of shocks.


My first shock came on Monday when I found the doctors did not like the results of an echocardiogram, I had done the week before, and wanted to schedule some more tests.

My second shock came on Friday when I went in for what was to be a routine Cardiac Catheterization. I passed out during the test and woke up to find four large burns on my chest caused by having to be defibrillated--- TWICE.  

Don't be alarmed!  I'm fine and the test showed that I do not have any heart problems.  Doc's claimed I must have been allergic to the dye they used. 

  

But, the biggest shock of all came on Saturday when I opened my Facebook account to find a photograph of one of my brothers with a daughter he had just met for the first time.  A girlfriend from long ago had become pregnant but he did not marry her and had no contact with her during the next forty-four years.  His daughter decided to track her biological father down after all these years and there they were smiling at the camera.

My brother's wife of more than three decades and their children knew nothing of this love child.  When my younger brother refused to "do-the-right-thing" and marry the girl, my mother decreed (like a scene from the Godfather) that it would not be spoken of ever again within the family, and it wasn't.  Over half of my siblings who were either too young or not yet born grew up knowing nothing about it. Now, as they go to Facebook, they are learning they have a niece who is forty-three and their children have five new cousins. Not only that but one of our "new" sister's four daughters has a child which is the first great-great-grandchild of my mother.    

My mother is eighty-nine.  Would learning of this sudden addition to our family be too much of a shock for her extremely religious mindset?  Will she feel only the shame of illegitimacy and denial, or will she embrace all these new relations?

Boy, what a shocking week and I suspect there will be even more shocks yet to come.     

Here we go again

In my archives, you will find a post entitled "Decision to have the last Word"  you can read it by clicking on the linked title above.  

One part of that post is copied below:
One day my husband and I were sitting in the exam room of a young Indian pulmonologist waiting for the results of tests done the week before.  Truthfully, we were not prepared for what followed.  This young doctor had certainly not had time to hone his bedside manner because, he stepped inside the room, shut the door and turned to look in my direction and bluntly said the words that will be forever etched in my memory, and I quote verbatim "Your test proved exactly what I expected.  You have Pulmonary Fibrosis.  You will be on oxygen within a year and dead in five."

Well last Friday I was once again in the office of this same doctor.  I had been feeling poorly for several days and then suddenly had problems breathing when I went outdoors in the hot humid weather of central Missouri.  I was sure I once again had pneumonia.  I've had it many times and always in the summer months.  Once the doctor had ordered a chest X-ray and a battery of pulmonary function test plus, referred me to a heart specialist for a stress test and echocardiogram he turned to my husband and me and bluntly said "You know the median life expectancy for your illness is seven and a half years.  I have been seeing you for three. I'm sure this is just the natural progression I expected from the beginning."


So starting tomorrow morning I will begin the weeklong battery of expensive testing: knowing that in the end, the result will be "Oh, you just had a bout of pneumonia."  Why did I even bother to go to the doctor in the first place and why can't I find another one closer to home to switch to.   

But, I could be wrong so wish me luck.