Well, the husband and I showed up promptly for my 8:30 follow up appointment with Dr. Neville this morning. After the nurse checked my vitals, etc, we waited a few minutes for the doc. Unfortunately the door opened to the nurse explaining that the doc had just been called down to an emergency surgery.
Hello! Don't these people know that I had an appointment? Clearly people in emergency surgery are very selfish individuals.
Anyway, we asked if I could have my ultrasound while we waited for him. This is at 9:00. I was told that I could have it done at 10:30 if I want to wait. I wanted to see those results, so we decided to hang out.
I needed to get a report from the neuro dept. which is just 3 floors up, so we decided to pass some of the time going up there. No sooner did I step off of the elevator than my own Dr. Tornatore walks by. He sees me and gives me a big hug! He had two residents with him, one of whom was with him last Wed when he came to see me right after the procedure.
They were just about to go on rounds, so he felt that he had a few minutes to see me. Holding up people waiting to be seen on rounds is not at all like pulling a doctor from an appointment just for emergency surgery. Dr. T has his priorities straight. ME! He led me into an exam room, and you guessed it, asked to see my feet. Hey, some habits are hard to break!
He was so pleased to see my white/pink warm feet! I was very proud to show them off. He was frustrated that he didn't have his video camera with him to document them. No worries! One of the fine residents handed Dr. T his own personal cell phone to take the video.
Aside: If this guy is anything like those Seattle Grace docs, I'm sure that right now he is passing his phone around to his other doctor friends at a bar right across the street from the hospital laughing at my funny looking feet. What an a-hole!
Dr. T. reiterated to me that veins take a long time to heal, so I need to be patient. Aah, that word again.
We went back to Vascular for my US. The wonderful and talented tech (and I'm not just saying that because I gave her this blog address today) who documented my reflux just weeks ago, had the honor of documenting my POST Liberation IJV flow. We were both excited to see no abnormal reflux! I'll get the full report next week, but it is all good. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We finally left GU at 11:30, only 3 hours after we arrived. In the car on the way home Dr. Neville's nurse called to ask if we were still in the hospital, because the doc was back. Sorry! I got the really good stuff from Dr. T. and the ultrasound tech. I didn't feel the need to see him face to face anymore. And I was certainly not schlepping back to that hospital again today!
There are no other patients currently scheduled for Liberation, but I am confident that will change VERY soon. Dr. T. met with Dr. N. on Friday to look over the stack of positive ultrasounds that have already been done. They are still trying to decide how best to proceed. It is just all happening so fast!
The most important thing (besides the obvious thing about me being Liberated) that came out of my procedure is that the vascular surgeons are now BELIEVERS. Perhaps they may not believe that opening the veins will improve MS, but that there is very likely a correlation between the reflux seen on US, and stenosis in the veins. That's a great start!
There is one other interesting thing to report. I am having an MRI next Friday to document the baseline amount of iron in my brain. If you recall from my earlier CCSVI lesson, iron builds up in the deoxygenated blood that backs up in the brain. Dr. Zamboni theorizes that the iron is the actual target of the immune attacks.
It will be interesting to see if opening my veins naturally lowers the iron levels in my brain. This is a fascinating new area that will be studied at the University of Buffalo in the near future. You'll hear more about this from me soon.
As for my symptom report, it is a mixed bag. I feel like each day with less fatigue, good balance and easier walking is followed by a bad day. I try to just roll with it, but it is frustrating. I am grateful to friends who are so good about gently reminding me of my own mantra of "patience, patience, patience."
Two steps forward, one step back. You would think that doing it on warm feet would be reward enough for now! I'm trying but I'm hungry for more. Note to self: see the damn mantra above!!!
I am exhausted as I am writing this, so excuse me if it is not my best work. It has been a long, but very exciting day!
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