Adventures in the Geriatric Zone continue . . .

If you are a Facebook user, you might have seen my post of last Friday:

Fun fact: A remote heart monitor, if placed on the side table on the right side of a queen sized bed may interfere with the Amazon Echo Show on the left side.

I found this out last Thursday when I pressed the button on the little white box that sends data to the cardiologist weekly from the defibrillator that has been implanted in my chest cavity!

The light was flashing on the box, so I pushed the button to send data. Thinking it would just do its thing, I walked away from the box. An hour or so later, I came back into the bedroom and it was still flashing. I thought, maybe I didn’t press hard enough and tried again, this time staying with the box and hopefully seeing a signal that the data was sent.

No such luck!

So, as a patient with a fairly new ICD, I tried not to panic, but called the cardiologist’s office. I left a message that my magic little white box was not working. The nurse called me back and gave me the number of the help line of Boston Scientific, manufacturers of the ICD and the magic white monitor box. The customer support person stayed online with me to troubleshoot what was going on and finally she asked, “Do you have an Amazon Echo device near your device?”

I did not define on the side table on the opposite side of the bed as “near,” but apparently I was incorrect in not doing so. She asked me to unplug the Echo Show that was on the opposite end table and the data went through.

The Echo Show now resides just below the 55” TV screen in the living room.

And now I know that as, my friend David Hunker said, I had one “magic device interfering with another magic device.” Just another example of ain’t technology grand . . . except when it isn’t?

May 2 - A Full Day at KUMC

Sorry to the folks who got teaser pictures from yesterday's visit to KUMC. I am not composing this post until Tuesday morning from the beautiful Starbucks at Brookside!

For those of you who are coming here from the Facebook album, you have the summary of the day. For those who are arriving here from elsewhere, here goes:

• Cardiology post-op visit
• Orthopedics initial visit
• Urgent Care visit,

I On Sunday, May 1, I received an email saying that I was on a waitlist for orthopedics (regarding my unreplaced knee) and that an appointment had become available on Monday afternoon. I accepted the appointment with the knowledge that I would be at the Medical Center all day long. So I packed my messenger bag accordingly with iPad, cellphone, reading material - after all the appointments were five hours apart.

So I arrived at my cardiology appointment at 9:45 AM. The main purpose of this appointment was to make sure that the incisions were healing as they should.

They were. Great news, right? During the appointment I turned off my phone, which turned out to be a mistake.

I asked the cardiology nurse to direct me to the orthopedics office.

She checked all upcoming appointments and all she could find was an upcoming orthopedist appointment in June.

WHAT??

II

So I checked my patient portal and found the same information. I did find the text message that said I had an appointment at 3:00 PM. So armed with that, I found the orthopedics office and checked in by showing the text message. They asked me to be seated and the nurse would be out.

In the meantime, I checked my voicemail which had come in while I was in the cardiolgy office about the cancellation of the appointment. It was not a satisfactory explanation why I had a new appointment a month and a week after my original appointment or for that matter why the new appointment was being cancelled.

The orthopedics nurse came out about a half hour later (it was after all still four hours until the appointment) and explained that initial visits were not scheduled at 3:00 in the afternoon because the doctor takes longer with new patients in order to assess what is going on. Then she kindly asked, "Does that make sense?"

Of course, it did.

However, advocating for myself, I replied, "Yes, that makes sense. However, it doesn't really explain why the automated service offered me this new appointment time when I really did not fit within the parameters. May I speak to someone who is in charge of scheduling?"

I got a look like he doth protest too much and remained in my waiting room chair for someone to come out and help me. Finally about noon tne nurse came back out and apologized and said, we can see you this morning if you're OK with that.

I was. Even though it was noon when I got in. That was much better than waiting until June since I was already there!

Anyway, I now have new X-rays of my left knee. As I knew from my old X-rays, there is virtually no cartilege. And this winter there were many days of left knee pain. Also walking, especially on uneven surfaces, my left knee would feel like it would buckle, much like my right knee did before it was replaced.

[If you've been following my health reports, you know that the surgeon who replaced my right knee retired between the time of the replacement and the end of the Covid lockdown. This is why I'm establishing a relationship with a new orthopedist.]

Anyway, back to the findings of the orthopedist. Because of my diabetes, my blood sugars are still too high to consider a knee replacement. It is very close, however, my most recent A1c was 7.1 and orthopedics at KU will not consider knee replacements until A1c is under 7.0.

So . . . the doctor gave me an injection in the left knee. A knee brace guy came in to fit a knee brace. And the nurse sent a referral for physical therapy, which should start soon.

At this point, I'm not sure if I will have the PT at KU or where I had it after my right knee surgery. In either case, it will occur before decisions about surgeries or other possibilities rather than after.

I'm happy to explore other options than surgery, anyway. Several friends have suggested stem cell therapy. I don't know if this is covered by Medicare, but it doesn't hurt to inquire.

III Three days before the surgery, [I let them know that I was having an earache. I asked them to check it out because I didn't want something like that to put a wrench into the surgical process.] They found nothing that impede the surgery, so I had the ICD inserted on April 22.

However, throughout the week after the surgery, I had recurring earaches and they have gone down to a sore throat. These have been fairly mild, but bothersome. So I decided to go to the urgent care center at KU before going home. (My PCP is on vacation this week.) They checked it out and found that I did have an ear infection. I was glad to find this out because it did feel very much like infections that I had forty or fifty years ago, commonly known as swimmer's ear.

The urgent care doctor prescribed a five day round of antibiotics. Normally, he would also have prescribed a decongestant, but thought the cardiologist might not be amenable to that since it sometimes causes higher blood pressure.

So this ends this post about my continuing adventures in the Geriatric Zone.