The continuing journey

I am still working with my primary care doctor and the cardiologists to try to determine what, if anything, is going on with my heart these days. We are pretty certain I have one. It is an ongoing journey of discovery.

Yesterday morning I went to LDS Hospital and had an ultrasound on the carotid arteries in my neck. I will not know the result of the carotid artery study until probably sometime next week, although I did ask the technician who did it what it looked like. He said he was not a doctor and could not really tell me, but he did show me the images and pointed out where it appears there is some plaque built up along the artery walls, more so in the artery on the left side than the right.

Next Wednesday, June 4, I am scheduled to have a cardiac electrophysiological study (ESP) done at Salt Lake Regional Medical Center. That is something similar to the angiogram I had nearly two months ago, but rather than checking out the plumbing of my heart they will be checking on the electrical functions. The procedure is similar in that in both types they go to the heart through an insertion in the groin area. I will be in the hospital much of Wednesday and, if they end up putting in a pacemaker or defribillator or long-term under-the-skin monitor, I will stay overnight. That is the likely scenario.

Someone from the billing office there called me a couple days ago and wanted me to pay upfront my 10 percent of the cost of the ESP procedure. My portion? $1,378. I commented that $13,780 seemed awfully expensive, and she replied that if I go ahead and have the pacemaker put in, which is a likely outcome of the procedure, that will cost another $150,000-something. Wow! And I had been flabergasted that the angiogram I had done at the new Intermountain Medical Center on April 3 had cost more than $5,000 just for the hospital's portion, not counting what the doctor charged.