Wednesday, March 4, 2020

A Day at the Doctors

We thought Dad had two appointments yesterday. Turns out he only had one. We were a week early to see Dr Musselman but it was at the end of a slow afternoon and he was able to see us.

We had a good visit with Dr Wiggans. I do like him and he does listen and elicits information. The largest part of the visit was bringing the doctor up to speed with the events of the past weeks. Of course no reports have been forwarded to him yet even though he is listed on all reports as Dad's primary care physician. It was a good thing Dad remembered to give me the copies of the hospital reports Helen told him to give me. Wiggans made copies of them.

His concern is that the gastritis is addressed and bleeding is stopped. Interested to hear results of next weeks visit with Dr Secor. He drew blood to check hemoglobin count to see if red blood count is building back up. Also to check INR (blood thinness.) He was to report results to Musselman and call me or Helen. But basically Dad is pretty much as stable as he has been which is mildly anemic. The GI bleeding is what precipitated his rapid decline of a couple weeks ago. 

Next we made it to Dr Musselman know time only to find out we were a week early. However they were able to fit us in. Every time Dad grumbled about waiting I had to remind him that we were lucky to be there at all. Musselman noted that Dad was certainly in better condition than when he was in there hospital where Dad was confused and his speech was slurred. Again he agreed the culprit was blood loss from the gastritis. Big news: the mitral valve regurgitation is stable, about the same as it has been, with no worsening. He goes back to Musselman in a month. 

Both doctors addressed the borderline sleep apnea diagnosis. Neither felt it required further attention at this time. The condition would need to be much much worse to justify the intervention of CPAP therapy. (Note that it has done wonders for Susan.)

So, all in all, a long tiring but productive day. We stopped for frozen custards from Andy's and headed for the house.