My Cardiac Catheterization Test

Posted on November 17, 2012 by Gale

11/17/12

 

Thursday morning, with support from my husband Eric and my daughter Allison (I’m such a wuss),  I headed to the hospital so I could have  a pre-transplant Cardiac Catheterization.  The test was required  mainly to determine my pressures so that the team at Toronto General can decide the best way to approach my surgery.  I know that sounds vague but when I asked, that is the response I got.  The good thing is that if I say that  fast and with an authoritative tone in my voice, it makes me sound really clever don’t you think?  Hush now, no need to point out that I don’t really know what it means.   Actually I sort of do.  The pressure in the pulmonary artery that goes from my heart to my lungs is very high because of the resistance it gets from my scarred lungs.  The good news is that test I had on Thursday showed that except for the high pressures; my heart is otherwise very healthy with no blockages.  They described the procedure as tickling my heart from the inside and it sort of did feel like that. Kind of a neat description for sticking wires into your heart and blood vessels.  I like it.
I figure I get the strong heart from my Dad’s side of the family.  I have quite a few aunts and uncles on his side of the family who are or who have lived to be well into their late eighties.  On my Moms’ side not so much although my Mom is 81 and even though she has had some serious heart disease, she is still going strong.  Or maybe it’s just the luck of the draw in the gene pool, who knows.  Bottom line is that my heart is in great shape, it’s my lungs that are crappy.  My strong heart is a definite plus for the outcome of my surgery.
I’ve been asking people and as far as I know, nobody else in the family has had Pulmonary Fibrosis.  My disease is called Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis because ‘Idiopathic’ just means of unknown origin. Could be hereditary, could be environmental or it could be my own immune system gone wonky.  Since I already have other auto-immune diseases like vitiligo for one (white patches of skin all over my body), my money is on my immune system gone into overdrive.

Right now my status is ‘approved for transplant but not yet listed’.  I had to have this diagnostic test completed first and now I am patiently waiting to hear back from Toronto General.   They will set up a time with me to come in, meet with one of the surgeons on the team, sign the medical consents for the surgery and be given my pager. So I will wait for their call because as we all know waiting is (wait for it)  ‘necessary and a good lesson in patience and self-discipline’ *grin*