My heart that belongs to me - a movie of my own coronary angiogram
After my first symptom of getting Dilated Cardiomyopathy 2 and 1/2 years ago, I had never done any further diagnostic until February 2013. I was late to realize that my Congestive Heart Failure had become Ischemic at the end. Previously, I was just surviving from one edema to another edema at that time. Being hospitalized for 5 or 6 time in two years has a very bad impact to my career and finally I loose my job. My sloppy mistake was letting my last edema for 3 months without any treatment, from October to December 2012. A huge desperation haunted me all the time. A lot of time and money had been spent for me alone but not getting me out of nowhere. Well, social and health insurance are not yet being fully develop by my state government. So that in real situation as a minority, I am trapped in a twilight zone, for not being poor enough to get a social and health support by the state, and not being rich enough to sustain my medication and keep supporting my own family. This illness really sucks man.
MRI was looked fun, wasn't it ? I was being inside the scanner for about 45 minutes. And hell yeah, it was fun for the first 20 minutes. The physician gave me a headphone and played Kenny Songs. Why ? in order to make me relax and not being phobia for the other 25 minutes !! It really took my Chi away to calm my self down. Ha ha ha. As a newly recover patient from edema, breathing is really a big issue for me. In addition, getting into a small chamber wrapping up my body, with 10 - 15 cm distance of the wall to your eyes that I even couldn't focus my eyes to it, really scary me at the end. My heart beat was getting faster, cold sweating, and I was knocking twice to get out of it for awhile, for a cooling down. But finally it was all over, leaving me a pray not to go to that donut anymore.
There are 2 places that commonly used to start the catheterization procedure. One from your wrist (usually the right one) and the other one is thigh base. Normally, the surgeon will examine and choose to start the procedure from your right wrist, when your pulse is readable clearly. If your pulse is too smooth or even felt empty, he/she will do it from your thigh base. It is much more easier to surge and recover the wrist rather than the thigh base, because the size of the vessel in human thigh is bigger and harder to make it stand still rather than your wrist or hand. I was afraid that my procedure would take place at my thigh base because my pulse was barely readable. Luckily, at the catheterization room, one surgeon were detecting my pulse at my wrist and confidence that no need to do the operation on my thigh base. 50% of my stress was gone instantly, but still far from over. I kept comforting my self by remembering that old man who had done those 16 catheterization with no pain as he told me. So that, i was joking with my surgeons and doctor too in that chamber, until the catheter went inside my wrist 1/10 way up to my artery. 8/10 way after that is my own scream (damn it hurts ! Because my artery is small ? I don't know), and the last 1/10 way is cool and relieving feeling when finally it reach my coronary arteries and spraying the contrast liquid. Anybody who are afraid of looking at squirting blood, please do not start to joke with the physicians with your eyes open at the beginning of the surgery. Just in case.
My wife and parents waiting outside the surgery room and had approved if there were any clogging on my coronary arteries, drug eluted stents will be our choice to implant on me. It also means that stents will solve a lot of collateral health issues on me ! But it was an irony. The result was no clogging at all. It means that it was definitely caused by a weak cardiac pumping action. Yes, the problem was more complicated and costly. And at my first control to the doctor, 2 weeks after catheterization, he finally said that in my case, it was irreversible. Well, I am on a waiting list now Ha ha ha.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging <My Redemption Inside>
Finally, I moved to the center of cardiovascular hospital in Jakarta, having a first week without seeing my main doctor, my patience had reach it limits. I realize that the Hospital is very hectic. It has more than 60 doctors, specializing in cardiovascular and any related heart disease. Even it can do more than a hundred catheterization per day but still not enough because it handle patients from all over Indonesia. Since my senior doctor never had time to look in to my toes or face, I switch to another senior doctor who had time to see my toes and face every morning for at least a week. Thank God for that. For total of 2 weeks i was curing my edema again, then my first MRI was on. The first preparation of getting scanned by MRI device was injecting a contrast liquid into my blood stream. Since I had a very low blood pressure and a bit fatty skin, nobody was able to find my venous blood vessel after 16 times stabbing me with syringe needle by 3 different nurses and a doctor. Finally they did find it. OMG. For your information, those stabs were excluded the other stabs for changing infusion needle every 3 days in two weeks, feeding me up with lasix and nitroglycerin. I am a person who are not afraid of getting shoot by syringe or infusion needle, but going back that moment shall change me a lot. |
| Magnetic Resonance Imaging (its not me in there. It is just a sample picture) |
My first Catheterization
Having 26% Ejection Fraction (EF) as the result of the MRI, my doctor scheduled me for another procedure called catheterization. This procedure are usually used by patients who have clogging arteries and required stent implants. For a 100% clogging, bypass operation has to be done immediately. Catheterization itself has a meaning of inserting a tube that is made of medical grade plastic or metal or other material, for the purpose of surgery. It was kind of coincident that a day before my D-day, i made a friend with 15 years older man who was considered eligible to get a full health insurance from government, had a cardiovascular abnormalities, had being catheterized for 12 times (maybe more), 6 or 8 times of the process was stents implantation, 2 times bypass using his own leg muscle, and still able to laughing and joking with me like a normal person in the room. Ah by the way, with me at the same room at that time, he was about to have another catheterization that only him, his wife, his doctor, and God knows what is that for. |
| Angioplasty Technique |
There are 2 places that commonly used to start the catheterization procedure. One from your wrist (usually the right one) and the other one is thigh base. Normally, the surgeon will examine and choose to start the procedure from your right wrist, when your pulse is readable clearly. If your pulse is too smooth or even felt empty, he/she will do it from your thigh base. It is much more easier to surge and recover the wrist rather than the thigh base, because the size of the vessel in human thigh is bigger and harder to make it stand still rather than your wrist or hand. I was afraid that my procedure would take place at my thigh base because my pulse was barely readable. Luckily, at the catheterization room, one surgeon were detecting my pulse at my wrist and confidence that no need to do the operation on my thigh base. 50% of my stress was gone instantly, but still far from over. I kept comforting my self by remembering that old man who had done those 16 catheterization with no pain as he told me. So that, i was joking with my surgeons and doctor too in that chamber, until the catheter went inside my wrist 1/10 way up to my artery. 8/10 way after that is my own scream (damn it hurts ! Because my artery is small ? I don't know), and the last 1/10 way is cool and relieving feeling when finally it reach my coronary arteries and spraying the contrast liquid. Anybody who are afraid of looking at squirting blood, please do not start to joke with the physicians with your eyes open at the beginning of the surgery. Just in case.
My wife and parents waiting outside the surgery room and had approved if there were any clogging on my coronary arteries, drug eluted stents will be our choice to implant on me. It also means that stents will solve a lot of collateral health issues on me ! But it was an irony. The result was no clogging at all. It means that it was definitely caused by a weak cardiac pumping action. Yes, the problem was more complicated and costly. And at my first control to the doctor, 2 weeks after catheterization, he finally said that in my case, it was irreversible. Well, I am on a waiting list now Ha ha ha.
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