Wednesday, January 4, 1984

Mom's off to the races today. It took me until 4:30PM to get her fed breakfast, teeth brushed, bathed and dressed. Now it's almost time to fix dinner and all I've done is minister to Mom. I changed her bed and did a load of laundry. It'll be a late night for me. She has her good days and her bad days, and today happens to be a bad day.

Love called twice today, each time after a doctor saw him. Immediate heart bypass surgery is indicated, even without an angiogram. An angiogram or catherization indicates to the doctors exactly how many heart arteries are blocked and how badly they're blocked. The death risk for the test is one out of one-hundred.

Here's the Catch-22 about Love's health problems. He had two heart attacks, March 20th and 23rd, 1983. He drove himself to the local hospital during the second attack, admitted himself, and was diagnosed in the emergency room. He was transferred to the Coronary Intensive Care Unit for three days, then to an Intensive Care room for seven days, after which, he was released. He was admitted to another nearby hospital April 19th, 1983, for further tests, because he asked for the specific tests. He was given an angiogram: the risk of death was one in one-hundred, and he was told he had three clogged arteries after the angiogram procedure. Then he was given a treadmill test, and released. No further instructions, except to take the medicine prescribed by the doctor. I want to make two interjections, Love was 39 years old in 1983 and did not have any insurance. He wasn't told that bypass surgery was recommended or that he was an ideal candidate for it, but it had been noted on his medical records. Totally unsatisfied and afraid about his future, he went to this area's Veteran's Administration, since he had served in the Bay of Pigs. He was told the the VA agency would have to get his records, and he would have to go to the closest VA hospital in Danville, Illinois, over 100 miles away for an examination. Unfortunately the Danville Veteran's Hospital doctors are booked-up for six months. He called the hospitals for his records to be sent to the Veteran's Administration, because the agency was to forward his records to the veteran's hospital. Six months later, Love is in front of the VA hospital's cardiologist, but no records are there, so he is rescheduled one month later. The VA agency said they would requisition his hospital records, but because of his previous experience, Love called the VA agency several days before he was scheduled to go to the VA hospital again, to be certain his records were at the hospital. No such luck! The records are finally at the local VA agency, but unable to be sent to the VA hospital in time for Love's appointment. Love had to go to the VA agency to pick up his records, and hand-carry them to the VA hospital. There he learned that he was an ideal candidate for bypass surgery and it was recommended by the nearby hospital. If he was an ideal candidate, why wasn't he ever told by the nearby hospital? He had to wear a heart monitor for twenty-four hours, and his medicine was changed to one of the new, more effective types that has a much less risk of heart attack. Back home! The nearby hospital has a surgical team specialized in bypass surgery. At the VA hospital, the cardiologist told Love that the reason the bypass wasn't performed at the nearby hospital was because he didn't have insurance. Also the VA cardiologist said that the hospital's records are so "vague and untechnical" that a new angiogram has to be performed, and the risk of death is one in one-hundred again.