libertango: (Default)
(Not an exact quote of Yeats, but hey.)

First up: I'm home, I'm doing well -- just tired occasionally.

Second up: Why that's news. :)

On Tuesday the 24th, at about 4:15pm, I had a mild heart attack.

It didn't seem like that big a deal. I'd been outside doing yard work, decided to come in to rest, and found I couldn't get comfortable because of a pressing sensation right on my sternum.

I called [livejournal.com profile] akirlu, and asked her opinion. She said to call the advisory nurse line at Group Health. We had an interview, during which the pressure subsided. The Nurse said I should come in to Urgent Care at either Central, or Eastside -- but if the pressure came back, I should call 9-1-1.

I put the garden tools away, called Ulrika to say I was off to the clinic, called work to say I'd be late at least... when the pressure came back.

So I called 9-1-1, as instructed.

A brief precis would be to say they took me to the local hospital, where everything seemed mostly OK. They'd admitted me with high vitals, but those subsided. I was then taken to Group Health Eastside...

...where, at about 11pm or so, they said the most recent blood tests showed elevated enzyme levels, of the kind your body produces after a heart attack. My EKG had started out mostly normal, but was getting more questionable over time.

I was transported again, this time to Virginia Mason, who have a known track record in this field. On Wednesday afternoon -- since I wasn't reporting any pain -- we did an angiogram, which led immediately to angioplasty, and the insertion of three stents into my left anterior descending branch artery.

What they'd found was my artery had about an 80-90% blockage. There was no tissue damage, though, fortunately. A stent is something of a lattice (think of the old fingercuffs sort of thing) that can be expanded to pump a blocked artery back open.

At this point I'd like to thank Dr Gordon Kritzer, who performed the operation, and his support staff of Anita, Vladimir, and Jim.

There were other things that happened, but the main thing for this account is I was released late Wednesday afternoon, and am now home. With a very happy Ulrika, Sarah, Tinka, et al.

I have a follow-up appointment with my primary doctor for next Thursday, which is when we'll decide when I go back to work. Work has been in the loop all along, and have been very supportive.

At this point I feel mostly OK, as I said. I just get tired a bit easily.
libertango: (Default)
Paul Krugman has an informative piece on health care today.

Here's the money quote, especially for small-l libertarians, although he doesn't drive it home:

"Above all, a large part of America's health care spending goes into paperwork. A 2003 study in The New England Journal of Medicine estimated that administrative costs took 31 cents out of every dollar the United States spent on health care, compared with only 17 cents in Canada."

Translation: Even though Canada has a government run, "single-payer" system, the "private-sector" US spends more on bureauracy, dollar for dollar!

Krugman also makes clear our "private-sector" system isn't that private:

"In 2002, the latest year for which comparable data are available, the United States spent $5,267 on health care for each man, woman and child in the population. Of this, $2,364, or 45 percent, was government spending, mainly on Medicare and Medicaid. Canada spent $2,931 per person, of which $2,048 came from the government. France spent $2,736 per person, of which $2,080 was government spending.

Amazing, isn't it? U.S. health care is so expensive that our government spends more on health care than the governments of other advanced countries, even though the private sector pays a far higher share of the bills than anywhere else."


Again: We spend more government dollars per person than either Canada or France.

No wonder there's been such resistance to "socialized medicine" in the US by the health care infrastructure: Turns out it would cut governmment subsidies too much.

Piggies at the trough.
libertango: (Default)
...which would be, I guess, all over.

In mid-June, I weighed 279 US lbs. This morning, quoth the scale, I weighed 251... for a loss of 28 lbs, or 10% of my former body weight.

This leads to some odd recurring problems. See, I used to have the back hems of the cuffs of my pants (back by the heels) fray a lot because my gut was pushing the pants down. Now I'm suddenly having the problem happen all over again... Because my pants are too loose on me, and won't stay up. (I would get new pants and/or a belt, but money is tight.)

===

It all started with an article in the New York Times Magazine. Ulrika read it, was impressed by it, and started doing an Atkins diet down in LA. I kind of tagged along, albeit 950 miles away up here in Seattle.

I can't say how well it would work for other people. All I can say is it's been working for us, so far. The US Dept. of Agriculture defines sustained weight loss as being 5% of body weight for a year or more. So I'm already past that threshold, even if I have 10 more months to go.

Sure, it's possible I'll just yo-yo, but... it doesn't feel that way.

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