Re: [Paddlewise] Doug Lloyd scheduled for open-heart surgery tomorrow

From: "DMcNally" <dmcnally_at_pacificcoast.net>

>Yvonne and Doug,  you've got lots of people on Paddlewise thinking of you, 
>even the lurkers like me  (lurking since WaveLength days). I guess this 
>coming surgery is a kind of "Go Big" and we're all waiting for you to be 
>comfortable back at home. Diane in Victoria<

Hi Diane (and paddlewisers),

Yeah, its me, still in Victoria too and alive (as opposed to having floated 
away to some distant shore - follow the strobe-light Doug, just follow the 
strobe-light...).

Sorry Yvonne didn't get back to the list - she was a little preoccupied with 
both running the house and being anxious about my well-being (okay, so that 
is the normal state of affairs around our household when I go out paddling).

I was too ill for visitors too.

Go Big or Go Home?  Yeah, it was business as usual in those regards for me 
at the hospital - and before:

All my wife's friends got some famous, documented faith healer - spent a 
whole afternoon at my house with me in a" healing service" a couple of weeks 
ago. Well, go big or go home, right? I just wanted a surgery date, really. A 
little divine help would be nice. I already had figured out God must love me 
(for some strange reason) after surviving flesh easting disease and the BC 
Medical System. Well, no immediate healing. No surgery date either - doctors 
said stay in bed until March sometime. Not working gets expensive.

Was fainting in bed however, day after day - not a pleasant sensation. Hit 
the ER department a few more times - no scheduled dates given. Go Home.

Real desperate on the Saturday - figured I was down to the wire - not an 
unusual experience for a storm paddler. So, spent 20 desperate minutes 
outside, taking off my new roof racks, went to the walk-in clinic with my 
wife - the clinician took one look, said I could die any moment; told me to 
go to the hospital and don't leave. He didn't want to touch me. Went to 
hospital -  Go big. Always.

Van fit under the parkade. Love it when the timing/planning is good like 
that - paddling or otherwise; stayed in ER "fainting" room all night.

ER doctor finally attended and told me it was all in my head; that I was 
suffusing myself with carbon dioxide during panic attacks and that my 
angiogram was fine. Yeah right? So, it was time to go big. Real BIG. Told 
the guy I was no idiot - stoic, stubborn, durable, something, but not an 
idiot. He finally found the missing cardiologist file stuck under the flawed 
radiology report. I'm a medical adjudicator - I told him, "Hey guy, never 
believe the radiologist report if more definitive info is available." "Okay, 
so you are "probably sick" and you do have a 95% artery blockage including 
severe aortic stenosis he come back. He calls the cardiologist on call - 
they know about me, but no surgery date apparently, yet. Said he did 
remember me finally - Doug the Medical Plan Adjudicator. He'd seen me many 
times over the last few years. So he admitted me, saying he'd put me in the 
"cardiologist's faces. Good move buddy - go big. Right on. And thank you 
God.

Next few days in-patient were even more taxing than some of my storm 
trips/paddles. Lots of interstitial IV's as nurses tried to poke my leathery 
arms (from years of paddling). And the doctors kept giving me drugs for 
Meniere's syndrome. I'm not making this up! I kept reminding them I didn't 
have vertigo; I'm a paddler and adjudicator and I know what the symptoms are 
for that. No, I was having light-headedness with micro-burst of angina, and 
that I've been like this for two years, and that yes, I've been working 60 
to 70 hours a week right up to the end, but I was unable to maintain even 10 
minutes of conversation now." I finally looked at the hospital physician 
square on and said, "I just want definitive care given in a timely fashion - 
please!!!!. Can someone give me that?"

Everywhere, old men kept coming into the ward; it had been backing up for 
open heart surgery for weeks. One guy had been waiting 5 weeks. Real nice 
waiting around like that when the hospital is full of resistant superbugs. 
Gotta love the BC Healthcare System, eh?.

Finally, my old electrocardiologist came by on the Tuesday, said they were 
bumping other people, and some newer guy who he trusted exclusively would do 
surgery on me on the Thursday. Finally. Go big and do it right.

Surgeon phoned my wife late Thursday, a little tired. He spent a few more 
hours than planned. He told my wife my ability to survive to Thursday was 
testimony to my tenacity and I was somewhat of a miracle. My other regular 
Cardiologist just calls me "a stout young lad. My wife? She calls me 
stubborn. Anyway, he reported to her that he took two extra hours just to 
clean away the calcium around my worn out bicuspid aortic valve - said it 
was as thick as his finger an didn't know how any blood was getting through. 
He did bypass surgery too, reshaped the aortic root and ascending aorta, and 
did a Cox-Maze procedure to hopefully prevent any future atrial fibrillation 
episodes which can put a cramp in a guy's paddling style. I went with the 
tissue valve for better paddling performance and no need for Coumadin and 
INR testing - also something that cramps one's paddling style.

I'll be back for another valve one day and more aortic surgery and bypass 
surgery. This is all on my horizon anyway, so the mechanical valve didn't 
add up. We will see how my scheming goes. The surgeon told my wife it would 
take a year for my heart to get back to normal size - given it has been 
working so hard the last two years.

Go Big, he, he. :-)

Oh, there was a big storm the day of the surgery. I liked that. Give me a 
few months, I'll be out in one paddling. Go big, or go home. Though I'm 
going to go to bed now - took me all afternoon just to write these few words 
to you. Not feeling so stoic right now. Hope this isn't too offtopic or 
egocentric for the list.

Go big or go home - and it is nice to be home again.

Doug Lloyd (In Victoria awaiting more stubborn storm paddling) 
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