Highlight of the day – I got to see my dad!!
He drove up early this morning from Hattiesburg for an 8:00 appointment at the VA hospital here. They ran a CT scan on the carotid artery on the left side of his neck. He had the right side operated on last year, when it was about 70-80% blocked. They have been checking the left side since then, and a Doppler test in late Feb revealed a 60-80% blockage. They wanted to do a CT scan to check. Since he was driving from so far away, they scheduled him for the CT scan first thing, then said they would do an “emergency read” and scheduled him for an 11:20 appointment in the vascular clinic to get the results. But, of course, they didn’t have it ready.
Now, I think the VA is a great thing. Don’t get me wrong. I really do. They do a great job taking care of all of our veterans. Including my dad, my father-in-law and possible one day, my husband (proud USAF vet that he is!). And for that, we are grateful. They have done really well with preventitive and maintenance type stuff on my dad and FIL both. Daddy has had his carotid surgery there, and a colonoscopy, and they have his cholesterol regulated now. Plus, he got new digital hearing aids last fall. All great. But, they are not the fastest organization on the planet! Normally, it takes 10-14 days (or more) to hear anything back from them. So, going in, I was already skeptical as to their promise of an “emergency read”.
They called down to the “visual imaging lab” that was supposed to read it, and they apparently told his doctor that it would be 3 PM today at the earliest. To which Daddy replied, “I’ll be in Hattiesburg by then”, which he was! The resident doctor who was talking to Daddy did go get Dr Rushton (sp??), whom we had met last year when he had the first side operated on. Dr Rushton proceeded to tell Daddy that “60-70% blockage is nothing to get worried about, and I wouldn’t operate on that, from the Doppler results”. To which Daddy replied – “that sounds great to me!” 🙂
We left the VA and went to lunch at Piccadilly. Daddy likes that place, and so do I. I like being able to get fish and veggies and not always eat fast food :D. For anyone who wants to know the gory details, I had stuffed, baked tilapia, broccoli, cabbage and a wheat roll. I was trying to be good!
I’ll post here later when I hear what the results were from Daddy’s CT scan. I got an email from him a few minutes ago, so I know he got home ok.
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