Once again, the cats were curious about his bag. They couldn't quite seem to figure out the smell of it.
Josh's plane landed in the evening, and he didn't get back to our house until close to midnight. He was given the next day off of work. I had made a cardiologist appointment for that day, thinking I would be on my own. Josh was kind enough to come with me. What a crummy day off it turned out to be for him.
At our base there is no cardiologist, so I knew I would have to referred to see one. The options were to go to Landstuhl (the huge Army hospital where they send the wounded from the desert), or be referred to a German cardiologist. After my last experience in a German hospital, I had my fingers crossed for Landstuhl. I saw my doctor on base, explained why I needed a referral, and here's what I was told. A referral for Landstuhl was put into the system, but I need to wait a few days for it to "trickle down" before I called to make an appointment. If they had space for me, great. If not, I'd have to go back to my doctor to get a referral to a German doctor. Such a racket. As luck would have it I was able to get an appointment at Landstuhl, and I thought I had made it for when Josh was gone. Lucky Josh got to tag along instead.
I have never had much experience at a military hospital. As it turns out, they have not had a lot of experience with Kirsten Lehman.
I checked in for my appointment, and was led into a room which was divided by curtains into tiny little areas. They wanted to take my vitals and an EKG. A very nice soldier with a southern accent told me to take off everything from the waist up, lay on the bed, and "cover" myself with this little towel. He then left me alone for 5 minutes. When he returned, he asked me twice if I was ready. When he was placing the EKG electrodes on me, he seemed overly cautious. I can tell by his rank that he's been doing this for awhile, so I assume he's worked with females. All I can figure is maybe he's worked with females who haven't had much cardiac work done. In my life I've had more EKGs than I can count. It's not a big deal. And really... the person doing the EKG is a medical professional who has no interest or ulterior motives for doing anything but their job. So frankly for me... the person could just stay in the room while I stripped down to save us some time. Let's hurry up and get this over with, I've got shit to do. I mean, really. I understand hospital/military policy. But.
After vital signs, I saw one of the cardiologists, who as it turns out is German. Ha ha ha. Touche universe, touche. He looked through my medical records I brought with me. My medical records is a funny story in itself. I had requested my medical records from my long time cardiologist before I moved - partly to have a copy for myself, but also to let the military/future doctors have a copy. I was expecting a large manilla envelope. What I received was a box, a large box, which had cost $26 to ship across town to me. I didn't trust to leave this box with my household items that got moved/shipped over because I wanted to have them "in-hand" if need be... so this box was a part of my carry-on. A box... full of medical records. So this doctor flips through them, listens to my heart and then announces two things. He wants me to have an echo and a stress test (normal tests I've had a dozen times over), and he thinks I need to go to a large German hospital to see a pediatric cardiologist. To put it in basic terms, he thinks I'm okay, but he has no experience with congenital heart disease, therefore he does not feel comfortable saying I'm okay.
At first I was slightly panicked by this, simply because in my head I took that to mean I wasn't okay, things were bad, I need to go elsewhere yadda yadda yadda. That's a reaction from years of living with anxiety and anticipating the worst. Unfortunately, it took me a few hours to chill out and see the good of the situation. Prior to that happening, poor Josh had to deal with me being a bundle of nerves. As it was, we had to wait a few hours between me seeing the doctor and having an echo done, so we ran a few errands. The entire time I was pretty out of it, and kept randomly bursting into tears. I'm sure sitting in a hospital waiting room and dealing with an emotional wife was exactly what Josh was picturing for his day off. I was able to realize (after some time), that I am lucky to see a doctor who can admit he can't give me the best possible care, and he's willing to send me to someone who can. I'm also lucky to live in a place where there are doctors with great skill and expertise.
For me the highlight of the day was the echo, which may sound weird, but hear me out. The echo tech was nice, and I could tell he was experienced by the types of questions he asked me. However, as the echo progressed I could tell he didn't have much experience with congenital heart disease. An echo for me normally takes about 30-45 minutes, tops. We were there for two hours. At one point in time, the echo tech stopped, looked something up in a reference book, then went back to work. That was a first for me. He also got a little confused/excited when he found some differences in my heart's anatomy, and seemed a bit perturbed by the whole situation. I can't help but laugh at it. I have had doctor's make comments to me when they listen to my heart, but I have never had someone seem so confused... and certainly they've never had to stop an echo to look something up... Wow. I had told Josh this test wasn't a big deal and it would be pretty quick. What a liar I turned out to be.
I had gotten spoiled with my last cardiologist who was smart enough to have his office schedule anything/everything I would need at one appointment. I always would go see him and have everything I needed done in one sitting. It doesn't work that way with the military. I was excited to have a few extra days off work this week... and instead I am spending those extra days off at Landstuhl (and driving the hour to and from Landstuhl). Yesterday I went down to get a Holter Monitor (24 hour heart monitor) which is one of my least favorite things in the world. It is uncomfortable, my skin reacts to the adhesive on the electrode patches, and I can't shower while wearing it. I also feel extremely self conscious while wearing it and feel people are staring (when I'm sure in reality they're not). I'm usually just a ball of joy while wearing it. So as I'm writing this I'm grumbling about the fact that I itch, and I'm counting down the time until I can rip this thing off. I have to head back to Landstuhl this afternoon for my stress test, which for me ranks right up there with a Holter. Basically a stress test is the treadmill from hell where the speed and incline increases every two minutes, and you go for as long as you can. Maybe I dislike it so much because cardiologists always seem disappointed when you say you've had enough and want to stop. But. I hate doing it. I keep trying to tell myself at least they will be done and out of the way... but I'm still not looking forward to it. .... focusing on the positive... focusing on the positive.
One last funny, small world note... As a part of me getting command sponsorship to get to Germany (which is a whole different story in itself) I had contacted German cardiologists to see if they would be willing/able to take me as a patient. I did most of my contact via email as that was a cheapest/easiest way to talk with the doctors. However, when I would initially contact a doctor I would provide my phone number. There was one cardiologist who called me (waking me up out of a dead sleep) only hours after I emailed him to tell me he would be more than happy to see me as a patient, and that he had experience with the military as he got referrals all the time. Guess who I'm being sent to see? You've got it.
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