Update 03.01.2016

03/01/16

WOW.  It's been a bit over three months since our last update.  When things go well, we tend to forget to update.  We will try to update monthly from now on.  We've heard from you that you are checking.

John feels well now, about the same or better than last March when his downward trend started.  He is back to work in the gardens and around the house.  We both still volunteer at church on Mondays and at Children's Hospital on Thursdays.  John is also still going to cardiac rehab exercise classes twice a week.

There have been no major medical issues since the last update.  The INR (blood thinner measurement) fluctuates, but that is normal.  There has been an issue for the last few weeks with an inflamed big toe that will be looked at by a podiatrist on Friday.  Also, there quite a bit of inflammation around the exit site in the belly due to some vigorous moving of garden mulch.  As in, way too much, but it didn't bother John when he was doing the work last Thursday.  He has been on antibiotics for the past five days, and it is getting better, but still more inflamed than we would like.

We received a notice from John's GI doctor (not in the UWMC group) that it is time for his annual colonoscopy.  It is a much bigger deal now that he has his LVAD.  We have been told that it now needs to be done at UWMC which will involve a five day stay in the hospital, rather than the normal outpatient procedure.  The LVAD changes the blood, due to the constant flow, rather than a pulsed blood.  It will take approximately two days to get off the blood thinners without risking clots, and another two days after the procedure to get back to therapeutic conditions.  We originally thought it needs to be done right away, now we are going to schedule it for some time in July.

That's it for now.  Thanks for asking.

Colleen and John