A little over a year since my hospitalization. I made it through through an aortic dissection, spending 16 days at Froedtert. I couldn't walk for 14 of them, as my blood pressure would plummet every time I stood up. I thought it was sheer willpower when I started walking, but the meds were probably starting to work. They signed off on me pretty quickly after that.
They told my wife when it started to not even follow the ambulance to Milwaukee as I would probably be dead when it arrived. They gave me a 5% chance of surviving the trip. I can't imagine how she spent her evening.
A month later I spent two nights in the hospital as my blood pressure started rising again. I was on meds to raise it, who turned out to not be needed anymore. Since then I've been on a bunch to keep it down.
I'd been visiting Froedtert every couple months after that. Probably had 5 CT scans done over that time. Everyone there seems happy with my progress. It seems I still have an aneurysm in my aorta, but it's too small to be workable yet. They're content to wait until the end of this year to check it again.
I has one mishap last month as one of my BP meds was draining all the potassium from my body. Another night in the hospital. They removed the offending med, but my blood pressure has risen a little since then. Not danger high, but I'm hoping they adjust it at my regular doctor visit next week.
I'm currently not working. My job was raising my stress levels quite a bit. I mentioned that stress from my job likely put me in the hospital to begin with, and they gave me a voluntary layoff package with 14 weeks of severance. I haven't been in a hurry to look yet. I'm visiting my USAF son in Mississippi the last week of March, so I'll probably be looking thereafter. I may just look for a factory job as I've grown weary of the IT world. My surgeon said I had some mini-strokes during my surgery, so I don't know if that was messing with me doing my job.
My aneurysm will have to be dealt with at some point. Best case is having a stent put in. My surgeon was bragging that he set up everything in my chest so that it would be easy to do. Worst case is a full blown surgery. I lost both my parents to aortic aneurysms in the last four years. No clue my Dad had one, who we lost first back in April 2021. We knew my Mom had two of them. Shortly after Dad died, she had surgery on one of them. A five to seven day stay in the hospital turned into six weeks as her kidneys took that long to start up again. She declined to have the second surgery done as this one was near her stomach (first one was in the chest), which would have been worse. Of course, it then blew up on July 2023. I had genetic testing done last fall, and it's all negative there.
I thought I'd fill everyone in, since I first brought this up on page one of last year's thread. Thanks to everyone for the well-wishes, as such things probably helped me along. I have my days where I don't know if I'll be around next year. So far, so good.
Watching the Brewers smoke the Royals typing this. 😁