Hello, I survived and am well recovered from the Heart Cath. It sure took longer than I expected. I had forgotten how much it would take out of me. The last time, before this one, that I had undergone a heart cath was when I was 11 yrs old. That was 25 yrs ago.

For those of you who want to know how the Heart Cath went, here's the details:

I woke up at (an unGodly hour) 5am, took a shower and had the great sense to wear sweats to the hospital. I didn't realize until after the procedure how glad I was that I wore sweats. We were out the door with my mother at 5:45am. We drove an hour to get to the hospital. I took my ONE pill of Xanex at 7am. We (my older sister, her husband, my mother, my husband and me) were in the pre-op, recovery room and met the doctor who was going to perform the procedure. I'd never met him before but I did ask about him previously. He's really nice!!

The doctor told me that they were not going in at the neck but in at the groin area and they were going to inject 3 doses of Flolan (or it could have been Flovan-- can't remember) during the procedure. Of course, my oxygen had to be removed for the majority of this test. I was thankful for the Xanex because I panic at the thought of being without my oxygen. Yes, people can become mentally dependant on oxygen.

The flolan, when injected each time, made me feel really light headed and short of breath. I felt like I was going to pass out each time. That was no fun. But the staff in the procedure room were GREAT. The guy who watched the monitors who was standing next to my head, joked with me about the bottom monitor being used for karaoke. I was suppose to think of a song so they could put the lyrics up there for me to sing. Silly, I know.

When they were finally done with the test, they pulled the wire out of my heart & vein and held pressure at the site for a little bit. Unfortunately, they didn't hold it long enough because I began to bleed again in recovery and now I have a huge bruise that's hideous! I was told to lay down and lounge around for 4 days. No heavy lifting over 10 pounds.

When I got home, I had shortness of breath and chest pain for two days and a migraine. On the 3rd day, I started feeling better. I got out of bed to lounge on the couch for a change of scenery.

And here I am today.. telling you all about it!