Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
A close encounter
Yesterday Jan and I took a leap of faith and went to one of St. Luke’s Hospital’s medical office buildings. I had not been on that campus for decades – not since Jackie and Ted were born there in the 1980’s. I was surprised by how big things have gotten out there in Chesterfield, or Town and Country, or whatever berg houses what I remember as a small hospital. Anyway, there we were, looking for the spot where Jan had an appointment with a Cardiologist.
The story behind this journey is that Jan has had nothing but trouble with her heart rate and blood pressure for months. She has seen a cardiologist, and then a specialist called an electrophysiologist. That doctor performed an “ablation” on her heart in hopes of curbing her heart rate that would spontaneously go up into the 150’s per minute. The ablation didn’t take, and she continues to have episodes of her heart pounding in her chest and galloping of her pulse rate.
Her experience with the first set of heart doctors has not been good. They have basically dismissed her case, stating there is nothing to be done. Now I’m not a retired cardiac nurse by any means, but even an old hospice nurse knows that cardiac care has become a domain of finely tuned procedures and medications intended to fix most heart problems. So, it was curious to me that the doctors weren’t too interested in pursuing any further treatment. They left it up to her Internist.
Her primary care doctor is not a heart doctor. She has been his patient for years and trusts him implicitly. No matter what he tried, though, the problem persisted and it seemed to me that her medications were changed and rearranged with startling speed. Like I said, not a cardiac nurse, but nurse enough to worry at how quickly meds were tried and discarded.
Through some little miracle, Jan found out that St. Luke’s has a cardiac department connected with the Cleveland Clinic, where heart care is stellar. This department offers second opinions, I presume for people just like Jan whose doctors are in over their heads. Finally the day of this new appointment dawned and we made our way to Suite 303 in Medical Building A.
We were greeted in friendly fashion. Jan registered and I helped her fill out the new patient paperwork. We had brought a list of her medications, a list of questions that we wanted the doctor to address, and some medical records from her primary care doctor. We were taken to the little room and she got her vital signs taken and had an EKG done by a very nice nurse. When she was finished, she said the doctor would be right in. In about 10 minutes, in walked a young woman who introduced herself as Dr. Dixon. Turns out the reason it took her ten minutes to see us is that she had studied the medical records we brought and also our list of questions.
Forty-five minutes later we had a plan in place for Jan’s ongoing care. I’ve been in the presence of lots of doctors and yesterday I was impressed and grateful for this young woman’s care and attention. She did not speak over us. She asked lots of questions and listened carefully to our answers. She explained why she, too, was puzzled by the current regimen of pills and wanted to simplify it. She was very professional about how she spoke of Jan’s care to date, but I could tell she was a problem solver and was not going to support something that clearly wasn’t working.
I can tell you that we both left that young woman’s office with renewed hope, knowing that she is quite concerned about Jan’s quality of life. She seems determined to use her knowledge and resources to help Jan. That’s all we were looking for yesterday and it manifested. Thank you to the Universe for making this connection!