We were in our kitchen, playing a friendly game of Scrabble as we often do after dinner, when a medical alert we’d never seen before disrupted our tranquility.
I looked at the message on my wrist and initially didn’t know its importance.
You may recall that last November, at Thanksgiving, I wrote a column reflecting on my experiences after being diagnosed with inoperable esophageal cancer and spending two weeks hospitalized and another in rehab.
Bob Sweeney, Villager founder/co-publisher (with his wife Gerri), asked me to share my thoughts on the subject with our readers, so I did. I received replies from several for whom it touched a nerve.
I’m at it again, also because Bob feels this part of my ongoing story might help others who are contending with medical issues.
The alert in this case came from my Apple Watch. It was sending a medical alarm that my pulse rate had dropped to 40—dangerously low for a man of 80-plus.
(A pulse rate of 60 beats per minute is considered the minimum acceptable rate for a male beyond normal retirement age,)
My purpose here is not to promote a brand of watches, but I must say that, if you can afford one that provides various health notifications, it’s a good investment. I wouldn’t have known my heart rate had dropped to a dangerously low without the watch alerting me.
My wife immediately stepped in, directing me to walk a couple laps around the house while she retrieved our blood pressure monitor to get a reading.
And that’s my first takeaway to share. Everyone needs someone who takes charge in the face of a perceived emergency—emphasis on “perceived” because the seriousness of any given health episode is not always immediately obvious.
When my heart rate didn’t rebound, she quickly packed us off to the Urgent Care Unit at Kaiser Permanente’s Lone Tree complex. After more than an hour of tests and an IV, they shipped me to the Emergency Room at nearby Sky Ridge Hospital.
Another lesson: Act quickly.
After more efforts to diagnose and treat my low heart rate, which had dropped to 35, I was admitted for what turned out to be a 12-day stay that included an overnight in the Intensive Care Unit.
Early in that almost two weeks I had a stress test that identified a blockage in my heart, which was treated on the spot with a stent. Later, I was catheterized when I was on the verge of kidney failure.
As this unfolded, my chemo infusions for cancer treatment were suspended, and some medications I was taking were put on hold because they had negative side effects for my heart and/or kidney issues.
Through it all—and this is the critical lesson, the most crucial takeaway—my wife recorded everything in a notebook she’d been keeping since my cancer diagnosis at the end of last June.
She has notes and names from every meeting with a doctor, every visit by a nurse, every result of a test (including daily vitals) and every change of medication. If she has a question about anything, she has documentation on which her query is based.
That’s especially important for two reasons.
First, doctors do their best to explain what’s going on; the treatment steps they’re taking; the medications they’re prescribing; risks, if any; and maybe a prognosis. Usually, that’s a lot of information—more than most people can remember and grasp when hearing it all for the first time, often in a crisis situation.
Second, particularly in a 24-hour hospital, information (sometimes conflicting or contradictory) comes from many sources. Nurses and their assistants mostly work three 12-hour shifts per week (resulting in several caregivers in any seven-day span) and doctors generally visit each patient only once each day when making rounds.
Another reason to keep a notebook is medical lexicon. Your advocate, especially if he or she is a family member or otherwise not part of the medical profession, can ask the correct spelling of medications, learn the specific conditions they treat and their side effects, and express what they’re hearing in words more easily understood by laymen.
This isn’t a sequel to that November column in the cancer sense, but the concept of someone to keep notes throughout a serious illness applies to any situation that requires significant medical treatment.
Some have suggested that “patient advocate” become an occupation, with a college course of study. But I’m not sure that’s the best approach. From personal experience, I’d say the kind of involvement I’ve described here is a labor of love.
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Denny Dressman writes a weekly sports column for The Villager. You can write to Denny at dennydressman@comcast.net.