So watched "Without a Trace" this evening? Cardiomyopathy!

[bunrab]

For those of you who have been wondering when I occasionally mention my medical problem, well, it's what Vivian on "Without a Trace" just got diagnosed with. They had her handle it about the same as I did - cry, and then go back to work because what the hell else can you do? Hers is apparently genetic - they reference an uncle who died in it. And it is true that high blood pressure, and high-blood-pressure-induced hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, are more common in blacks and some hispanics than in pasty white people. So it's a good issue for them to raise. You may have heard me describe what I have as CHF, or congestive heart failure. That's actually sort of the end result, not the cause; the cause is that the heart is really way enlarged and the walls very thickened, and that's why it can't pump properly, which is the heart failure part. Now the cause underlying the enlarged heart/thickened ventricle walls is more of a mystery. In some cases it's genetic, as with Vivian; in some it's due to a congenital heart defect; in many people it's due to morbid obesity and/or diabetes and/or heavy smoking weakening the heart. Or, as in my case, it is of completely unknown origin, which then adds another multisyllable word to the mix, making it "idiopathic hypertrophic cardiomyopathy." The thing is, I hate being able to pronounce those words perfectly and define them to a T - that's not a bit of trivia I really wanted to ever have to acquire, much as I love trivia. Anyway, for those who want a preview of what the plot arc for Vivian might be, it will probably involve: hospitalization for an angiogram or ten; getting a defibrillator/pacemaker; taking an awful lot of medications, all of which have their own fascinating side effects, and still facing a life expectancy of only 5-10 years. Yeehaw.

Enough of that depressment. Like I said, trivia. I just thought any fellow fans of the show might be mildly interested.

Tomorrow (later today? It seems to be midnight-ish) S's cousin who is a real estate agent is coming over to help us prioritize which things need to be done to the house the most, in terms of sellability. Salesworthiness? My spell-check doesn't like either of those words. Anyway, we KNOW that (a) get at least 3/4 of everything we own out of here, and (b) paint everything in sight, inside and out, are our top priorities - but after that? Should we replace the kitchen floor, or plan on giving a flooring allowance? Refinish the wood floors? Repaint the kitchen cabinets, or reface them, or leave them, or replace the whole things? What about the ancient blue Formica kitchen counters? Should we plan on selling our old washer and dryer, or leave them with the house as a bonus (we aren't going to bother to move appliances that are nearly 20 years old, when we can buy much more energy efficient ones, that will fit whatever space we wind up in, once we get up there)? And about 8 zillion other questions. (And yes, we also know that "get the pets out of the house" is one of the other top things on the list, but that just ain't gonna happen. Although we might be able to very temporarily reduce the number of pets for a couple weeks when the house first goes on the market, by asking a friend here to babysit a guinea pig or two, and a friend there to babysit a rabbit - let's see, Sam, Liz, are you listening? And Cindy, and Anita, and Jerry... Forewarned is fore-armed. (And fore-armed is half an octopus.))

I spent this afternoon up in Round Rock using a commercial "long-arm" quilting machine to finish a couple of quilts, except for the binding. I made a reservation to use the machine again in exactly a month, so that I have inspiration to get a couple more quilt tops DONE by then. I don't want to pack and move vast numbers of unfinished quilts. If I could get all the ones for people who are already married or have already graduated, finished, and just carry along current projects, that would be great. On a commercial machine, it takes about an hour and a half to do the quilting on a 6 foot by 7 foot quilt. Whee!

Comments

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

No, of course it isn't universally true. It's a statistical range, and any statistic has outliers. There are also people who die within a year of diagnosis. There are people who were new patients at Austin heart at the same time I was who are dead already. There are people who get transplants and die within 6 months and other people who get transplants and live another 10 years. The 5-10 year statistic is more detailed as follows, and you can find it on the AHA web site as well as others: 50% of the people with the diagnosis die within 5 years after diagnosis; 80% of people with CHF die within 10 years after diagnosis. That still leaves 20%, quite a few people, who don't die that fast. Part of the problem is that they really don't know what extends life that much. For example, the defibrillator implants improve quality of life and reduce hospitalizations a great deal - but they don't seem to have actually reduced mortality; people with defibrillators implanted still have about the same death statistics as those without, but much lower hospitalization rates until then. This is also true of many of the medications prescribed - they reduce hospitalization rates, but so far haven't changed the life expectancy that much. The one thing that has been shown to improve life expectancy to any significant degree is the defibrillator-pacemaker with bi-ventricular pacing, the one where they put the third lead in the other ventricle. You know, the one they couldn't manage to do on me, although they wanted to, because the veins at the back of the heart wouldn't let the lead in? I would have been part of the study that has shown the improved life expectancy - I had signed all the papers for it - but they had to drop me out when they couldn't complete the procedure. Go me... My electrophysiologist says they're improving the technique, though, so within a couple more years, they can go back in and try again without going so far as to do open-heart surgery. Since pacemaker batteries only last 5-8 years anyway, if I can last that long, chances are when they put the new one in, they can do the bi-ventricular dealie. Who knows, I may yet look forward to having to surrender my handicapped parking tag.