11/3/2019

Chapter 10: The Swedish Saving Throw

MargaretMargaret
Filed under: @ 7:37 am

The administration at Swedish Medical Center may have its downfalls (what medical administrative authority does not?) but their medical and patient outreach people are absolutely top notch.

How else can one explain the fact that I left work at a little after 3 p.m. on Thursday afternoon and by the time I got home about 20 minutes later Andrew had spoken with the transplant coordinator of his team and she’d managed to shoehorn him into the schedule for the cardiac catheterization lab for the next day?

I submit that if we’d run across the same glitch -glitch, what a paltry little word for such a major upheaval- with the UW transplant service we’d have had to wait several weeks to a month before the test would have been scheduled.

As it was though…. 24 hours.
It was 24 hours of panic, a lot of frenzied e-mailing, apprehension, chaos and confusion, but 24 hours nonetheless.

We were at the Swedish Cherry Hill campus at 3p.m. the next day. Andrew was scheduled for angiography at 5. The regional head of cardiology, the specialist who’d just happened to be the one on call for that day, came to talk to us about the procedure at about 4. He explained that they were running a bit behind schedule, but they’d absolutely be able to get Andrew done that afternoon. We indicated that we really didn’t care what time the angiography was done so long as it got done that day and Dr. Cardiology assured us that it would be.

Then we heard him on the phone out in the hallway. Wheeling. And. Dealing.

The upshot being that Dr. Cardiology arranged with the scheduler for the cardiac catheterization lab and at least one other specialist that since Andrew wasn’t going to be hospitalized overnight and the *three* patients in front of him on the list for the catheterization lab that day were going to remain hospitalized overnight, Andrew would jump the line and go next.

*BING* And so it was.

I went down to the waiting area, conveniently close to the in-hospital Starbucks, plugged in my iPad and my headphones and spent 90 minutes or so frenziedly playing Candy Crush and sucking on an iced chai latte. In general I am a little jaded about Starbucks. I don’t really drink coffee, there are WAY too many Starbucks EVERYWHERE and my understanding is that their coffee, at least their “coffee bar” coffee, kind of caters to the tastes of the lowest common denominator, but I do love me an iced chai latte.
We all have our weaknesses.

Got a call, went upstairs (weirdly to the geriatric neuro ward) to the room where they’d stashed Andrew for post-anesthetic recovery and monitoring. And we proceeded to sit out the two hour post “you’ve just had a great enormous catheter shoved into your femoral artery and we want to be sure you’re not going to blow a gasket and blow up like the Sta Puft Marshmallow Man” waiting period.
Andrew, having heard my report of a Starbucks in the lobby, insisted on coffee. It was dinnertime anyway so I went downstairs, got a couple of sandwiches, the requested coffee (decaf) and came back in time to catch Dr. Cardiology coming by and telling us that the angiography looked good.

We’d known that Andrew had a blocked coronary artery. The angiography that had been done for the UW workup a year earlier had outlined that, but had also indicated that adequate collateral circulation had developed and that the cardiac muscle supplied by that artery was healthy.
This year? Another indication from the universe that the transplant was meant to be. Dr. Cardiology told us that the collateral circulation around the minorly blocked artery was improved over where it had been last year.
The upshot being that Dr. Cardiology personally was going to call the transplant surgeon with his recommendation that the transplant go forward. Dr. Cardiology noted that he’d also be talking to the transplant coordinator, but he wanted to tell us first so we wouldn’t have to wait to hear the final decision until the transplant coordinator called us. Normally we’d have to wait to hear the news until he’d made his official report and sent it to the transplant team, but he knew that time was running short and he didn’t want us to have to wait and worry any longer.

Seriously. Swedish medical personnel? Absolutely super people!

Things started moving rather quickly at that point.
Dr. Cardiology called and spoke with the transplant surgeon. Dr. Cardiology then called and spoke with the transplant coordinator who was waiting for the “go” sign from the transplant surgeon.
Transplant surgeon called transplant coordinator, transplant coordinator called Andrew.
During all of this we, in an absolute tidal wave of relief, were sending text messages and e-mails to everyone that we’d sent panicked “it’s off” messages in the previous 24 hours.
All with Andrew still lying flat on his back because he was still under orders to stay calm and flat so his femoral artery didn’t blow up.

And as soon as the transplant surgeon and transplant coordinator had the official “GO” from Dr. Cardiology (and as soon as the two hours “you haven’t blown up like the Sta Puft Marshmallow Man” waiting period had passed) Monday the 26th was back on.

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