Let's Catch Up

Since the last post, Carlos continues to have INR struggles.  Monday they re-checked his blood and it was 5!  They had him hold the coumadin the last couple nights and today it was 3.4.  So tomorrow he goes in for an appointment instead of Friday.  Eva, the coordinator, had a lot of questions about heart failure symptoms.  They are concerned that there could be worsening heart failure which I guess can cause erratic INRs.  So they moved his Friday appointment up to tomorrow.  He's worried that he could be hospitalized - I told him that more than likely they would need to just tweak his meds and no hospitalization would be necessary for that.  Then half an hour later, he starts coughing.  MF!!!  He needs to behave.  I'm not sure my sanity could take another hospitalization unless it's for transplant.

We found out that there are two things standing in the way of being re-activated on the list.
     1.  He needs a repeat colonoscopy - they are saying to do that mid-April.  Unfortunately, this requires a hospital stay of 3-4 days.  He can't have outpatient because of the whole coagulation issue.  They need him to have an INR less than 2 for the colonoscopy.  Then they will have to get it back up afterwards.
     2.  He has to walk a certain distance (1100 feet) on the treadmill in 6 minutes.

We ended up getting away this past weekend to Sierra Vista, AZ.  We made a trip to Tombstone on Saturday afternoon and it was great until Carlos became very fatigued and short of breath.  It was disappointing for me as I wanted to do a little more shopping.  But just as well - I spent too much money as it was :p  Sunday we stopped at Karchtner Caverns on the way home.  Carlos actually completed 2/3 of the tour of the caverns before needing to stop.  I somehow had a blond moment and forgot that it would be a 1/2 mile of up and down with something like 13% gradient.  WTH was I thinking!!!!

He started cardiac rehab today and did very well.  He did the treadmill, some sort of biometric bike, the reclining bike, and some upper body weights.  He'll be attending that program three times a week - I was very proud of him and felt a little teary-eyed at how far he has come!!!!