Author Archives: Echo

Doctors, Doctors, Doctors

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(Continued from Coronary Artery Disease? From Where?)

After the stress echocardiogram, Erika, the PA I see at my doctor’s practice (what, see the doctor? Once in half a dozen blue moons!), sent me a message saying she wanted me to have an angiogram as soon as possible. When I called the cardiology department, they wanted me to wait about three to four weeks just for a consultation.

So I called Erika and left a message telling her this and saying, basically, “Didn’t you want this done sooner than that?” Then HER nurse called me back and we went through the whole thing again, and damned if I couldn’t hear Erika in the background – so why wasn’t she talking to me? Anyway, someone, somehow, leaned on the cardiology department and got me an appointment the following week for a consultation with Dr. Cohen’s PA.

From then on, things sped up considerably. Continue reading →

The Story of My First Menorah

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My First Menorah

My immediate family are Episcopalians (as I was raised). The daughter of my heart says she’s “pretty much an atheist.” The son of my heart is Jewish. I am none of these, and have no holidays that correspond with my rather inchoate beliefs, so I have, since the death of our mother, celebrated Christmas (and sometimes Easter) with my brother who lives nearby and his family.

Fantasy Menorah

Joey’s Gift – the fantasy Menorah

But over the last few years my son Joey’s Jewish faith has become more important to him, and what matters to him becomes important to me. I had been looking for a menorah but hadn’t found one I liked; then last year he sent me a small pixie-ish menorah for Hanukkah. That settled it. This year I would celebrate this winter holiday with him and his family from afar.

Hanukkah is not an important holiday – it just gets extra press because people feel like Jews ought to get some attention at this time of year, too. But it is the first Jewish holiday this year that I’ve been able to celebrate. It’s not that I am converting to Judaism. I am honoring my son’s faith. I hope to celebrate the much more important Passover with him in person next year.

As I said on Facebook earlier today, “It will be odd to celebrate a religious holiday alone when I have never even done it before. But because one of the children of my heart takes his Jewish faith seriously, it is important to me to celebrate as I know he is doing so far away. I have no religious holidays of my own, so those of my family become important.” Continue reading →

Coronary Artery Disease? From Where?

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Last Wednesday I had a stress echocardiogram, and the results were “abnormal.” I don’t have the technical knowledge to understand the medical gibberish in the report, but the bottom line is that my doctor suspects “severe coronary artery disease.” So on Wednesday I have an appointment to see a cardiac nurse practitioner.

Heart disease runs deep in my family history. After getting furious with his doctor, who had missed a key indicator for diabetes on a routine blood test (Daddy noticed it and pointed it out), my father went home and had a heart attack at 62. For the next 13 years he had many long periods of decent health, but also many angiograms and angioplasties, not just in his coronary arteries but in femoral and carotid arteries as well. He was up on the roof one day in 1996, happy as could be cleaning tree and leaf debris off, and died in his sleep that night.

One of my younger brothers had a quintuple bypass while still in his 40s. Mom had atrial fibrillation and congestive heart failure. Continue reading →