Rats Beware

Today has been an exceptional day. Aside from the pasta dinner we just had, I am feeling light as air.

The day started out same as usual. Simon and I went about our business (morning feed, morning walk, morning hang out) the same and then around 9:30am we headed to the hospital for our 10am cardiology appointment.

We said Hi to Nick at the Ambassadors desk, saw Gail from the Gift shop on our way to the elevator, and checked in with Connie at the Cardiology front desk. We checked out the fish in the waiting room and then got called in for our Echo cardiogram (today's tech was Brandon
who turned us on to CoQ10 in the first place). So far so good.

What was not so much fun was Simon screaming his way through an Echo cardiogram for the first time. And, what was great was that Brandon is the fastest tech in the west (isn't it great that since we're in California I can say that).

Shortly thereafter we're waiting in one of the exam rooms for our visit with Dr Rosenfeld. Sara Scott, our outpatient nurse practitioner, found us to go over some insurance crapola regarding a home INR machine (that our insurance wasn't going to be able to cover and would have cost us anywhere from $1500 to $2500 out of pocket plus $146 per month of usage for testing strips) so that we can continue playing with CoQ10 and not have to come in every couple of days to make sure that it's not interacting with his Coumadin.

I was just seeing more and more of our savings chipped away when HunkyPants rolled in. Looking his usual dapper self he launched right into how since our last visit he'd conferred with Rosenthal down at Stanford and they'd looked up studies with Coumadin (the one hated medication that is also used for rat poison and interacts with just about everything except for air). I wasn't surprised that he'd been looking into it (but quite impressed and thrilled) since every visit for the last 6 months at least at some point during our visit we'd have this conversation:

Me: "So we'd really like to start Blah blah blah but we've heard that it interacts with Coumadin"
HP: "Right, well let me look into that but in the meantime I think we should probably keep Simon on it."

Me: "Ok, but we'd really like to work on getting him off it."

HP: "Ok, but for now let's keep him on it."

I would say we had that conversation no less than three times.

Right off the bat, he says that between Simon's function improving and his conversation with Rosenthal, we can just stop the Coumadin.

Wait a minute...hold it. Back up...Simon's function?

It looks like while not a big jump, Simon's function has crossed over into that realm that allows us to play with his medications. Play....as in discontinue Coumadin!!! That means more Rat poison for the Rats (sorry rats).

Simon's shortening fraction is now in the 20-22% range and his ejection fraction is now approximately 40%. In looking over our notes we think that when Simon was at his worst that first morning in the hospital his ejection fraction was 9%.

That is incredible. His little/big heart is doing it's thing.

We've gotten rid of the Coumadin, started a new regiment of baby aspirin and have retracted Simon's DNR at the hospital. Holy Crap Dude!!!

Oh yeah, and NO BLOOD DRAW this visit.

What a great day.