Dad's Heart

A little late on updates, but on Friday Dennis and I met Ben and Elwood in St. Cloud for Elwood to have an angiogram at St. Cloud hospital. The angiogram went well, we found out he doesn't have major blockage so they don't have to do any surgery to correct blockage.

So that was good to hear, the unfortunate part is that for some reason Elwood's heart is only working at about 50 percent. And it seems like he may have abnormal heart rythm.

Blockage was one thing that could have explained the reduced capacity/heart rhythm, other things could be: excessive drinking (4-6 beers a day) - pretty sure that is NOT the issue, sleep apnea - so he's doing a sleep study in December to see if that might be causing it, a virus like Lyme disease or something that he might have gotten from a tick bite last year or even something else - for that they are testing his blood, or it may just be some other thing that they'll never be able to explain.

The next steps are to put him on some medication for the next 2-3 weeks and then try shocking his heart back into a normal rhythm. Which if they are able to get it back into a normal rhythm it should allow him to regain some capacity and hopefully prevent further damage.