Update on Mom

I talked to Mom's Cardiologist again on Friday.
Once again, I didn't hear any news that I wanted to hear.
After getting a second opinion from her peers, Mom's doctor doesn't feel that surgery is an option.  There are no viable vessels to reconnect the bypass.

This is a summary of the conversation:

- Surgery to repair/replace the collapsed bypass is not an option.
- New meds are being added for symptom management and to hopefully open up the vessels to create better blood flow.
- The nurse is calling me tomorrow to schedule Cardiac Rehab.
- The nurse is calling me tomorrow to schedule EECP. Every day for five straight weeks, Mom will have to travel to Kirklin Clinic for therapy.  Wow.
- The Cardiologist humored me and agreed to fax Mom's records to Atlanta.  I talked with the Atlanta office and they received the records.  Now we just have to wait and see if the surgeon thinks that Mom is a candidate for surgery.  This doctor is the Cardiothoracic Surgeon and Chair of Saint Joseph's Heart and Vascular Institute.  My Mother's Cardiologist told me that some of the nations top Cardiologists had already reviewed Mom's records and were right here at UAB and they all agreed that surgery was not an option.  I very politely told her that I did not doubt her professional knowledge or opinion, but that it was my duty to seek out all treatment options for my Mother.  Otherwise, I would not be able to sleep at night.  (Basically the exact same thing that I told doctor after doctor in the years since Addie's birth).

If after talking with the surgeon in Atlanta and it is determined that surgery is truly not an option, then it all comes down to prayer and symptom management.