Things are finally starting make sense with Grandma’s current health woes. She was feeling kind of out of it and dizzy last week, and went into the doctor to make sure nothing was wrong. It turned out she had several TIAs over the course of a few weeks or so. TIAs apparently aren’t as bad as strokes, but having a lot of them isn’t a good thing. So, they put her through the ringer of tests and were going to get back to her. Monday night, she got super dizzy and asked to go to the hospital. As usual, she spent about 15 hours in the ER, getting very spotty treatment. They viewed her brain again and thought maybe it was dementia. D’oh. They decided to do some more tests and look at her heart, and then the problems became more apparent. I’m getting this third hand, but she has muscle tissue weakness (tear? something not good, whatever it is) in her heart. They think it’s probably plaque build-up and are putting a catheter in today to look around and maybe do an angioplasty if they find build up. They should know the real cause of the heart problems after looking around, so that’s good. When I was there last night, the doctor said the TIAs definitely fit as a result of the heart issues.
If there’s a good side, it’s the doctor saying “We don’t usually do this catheter/angioplasty routine on 81 year-olds, because it usually doesn’t matter. But, you are in very good shape, so we’re going to treat you as we would, say, a 60 year-old”. Well, good for my Grandma, but maybe not so good for other 81 year olds, eh? I hate being disappointed by doctors. That’s a whole different issue, though… I need to hurry up and build that hater site.