Liberation angioplasty details!

Hello friends... sorry I wasn't posting in Sofia... My computer "magically" converted my blog to cyrillic... ouch! as the selection tabs were all cyrillic too, I could not change it back! Fun times! LOL My cohort Jenn hadn't learned the cyrillic alphabet yet, so I was hooped!

The flight to Frankfurt was flawless... other than the fact I did not sleep at all until the second leg from Frankfurt to Sofia! Needless to say, we were exhausted when we arrived. I wanted to take a photo of the lovely Lisa from Geya tours holding the Tessa sign.. .but was way too overtired to even remember I had a camera in my purse! LOL We met Al, Lis his amazing Swedish wife, Rudy & his lovely mom Juta (hope I'm spelling it correctly!), Perry & his mom on the ride into Sofia from the airport. I hope I'm not forgetting someone... like I say, the fatigue was BAD! plus... it was over 90 degrees with HIGH humidity! ugh!

The hotel was lovely. I recognized a lot of it from all the before/after videos my friends have put up on YouTube! Jenn filmed a pre-angio video of me outside the front doors, but we are having technical difficulties uploading it! I watched it today & was horrified at how bad I was. The heat was brutal & it showed. That being said, I was in superior shape to many of my friends who were there with me & many others who suffer with many more motor skill issues than I ever did.

The people I met in Sofia were fantastic! Lovely people who make having MS & CCSVI worth it just to have the opportunity know them! We all congregated at the Greenville Hotel & listened to each others stories. It was nice seeing the friends, cohorts & caregivers sharing their experiences with us MSers too. We had the best girl as our bartender who served us without delay & taught us Bulgarian (nazdrave!) blagodaria & good luck in Spain after graduation!

It was evident within a very short time that the people of Sofia are good looking! The nurses & doctors at Tokuda were gorgeous, the girls at the Serdenka mall were amazing (my friend Chuck was bummed that I didn't bring photo evidence back!) LOL Sorry dahling.. you'll just have to go there for a vacation!

The food - oh, the food! Apparently the trick of staying rail thin in Sofia is by eating copious amounts of black olives, tomatoes & feta cheese! I like it! The food portions are larger than any super-sized meal in the USA, but it is all fresh and made with love - there are the evil fast food meccas like McDonalds, but we were all over the local food! YUM! If you ever go to the Tokuda hospital, make sure you have someone to share your meals with - they are fantastic & the portions are ridiculously huge! :)
I lost weight even though I ate like a queen the whole time! (see note above re the healing powers of feta, olives & tomatoes!)

The hospital was interesting. When I first got there, I was taken to the phlebotomy lab to get a blood test. There was an elderly woman in a wheelchair beside me & she looked like a gypsy character out of a movie - pretty cool! After getting the blood test done, it was off to the doppler waiting room - the nurse spoke very limited english & via hand signals, i understood I was to take off all my clothes & put on my robe (NOTE: the hospital does NOT provide robes - you have to bring your own!) I waited for a while & joked with Jenn. I was a bit nervous, but had an inner calm because I knew what I was doing was exactly the right thing! I was taken to the room where Dr. Grozdinski & his beautiful assistant were waiting for me. He is such a kind man! I lay down & the doppler imaging began.... Dr. G was speaking Bulgarian & his assistant was typing it all into the computer.... blahdiblah bulgarian... stenosis... blahdiblah bulgarian...stenosis.. blahdiblah..stenosis - the happiest words I've heard!!! I knew he'd found stenosis!!!! Thank goodness it's the same word in Bulgarian~ LOL Now this is proof that doppler is only an idea of what is truly going on... the doppler showed 70% stenosis in each of the left & right jugulars & 25% stenosis in the azygose....

I was then given a room on the 6th floor cardiac unit... 610 with a lovely view of Zombieland abandoned amusement park... pretty cool! I was told my procedure would be the next day & that I had to fast... hmm... I got the IV port put in my arm (there is a great pouty Tess picture which Jenn took that we are having trouble uploading...) ouch! The only really mean person I encountered the whole time I was there came in to do my neurological EDSS scoring.... it was so hot there, I knew my testing would be worse than my last tests in Calgary.... they were, I was shocked to see she'd scored me at a 5.5!!! my highest ever - the only thought going through my head was that it was perfect timing I was scheduled for CCSVI angioplasty!

Sleep was sporadic - pretty excited about it all! The next morning, wandered around the halls meeting all my compatriots & compared notes. I was next on the list to go downstairs for the procedure... anticipation..... The really cute male nurse came to get me around 7pm (think how STARVING I was!) we went downstairs outside the operating rooms..... I could see Dr. Petrov coming down the hall.... he introduced himself & then began to apologize - he would have to push me to tomorrow morning due to his needing to do paperwork.... crushing, but hey, I'd waited this long... what was another 12 hours! This also meant that I got to eat!!!! YAY

I did sleep once I got back to my room! I knew I was scheduled for 7:30 am... I woke up at 6, the sunrise was really cool! I took some pictures, but the window was dirty & the zoom on my camera was small, so they don't reflect the true beauty (or perhaps it was the last sunrise before my angioplasty which made it all the more beautiful?) True to their word, my cute nurse came to escort me to the OR.... they sat me on a chair in a small waiting room outside the OR & another gorgeous female nurse asked me to take off all my clothes & handed me a sheet! I walked to the OR table & lay down. It was so narrow & you have to hold your arms still at your sides... that took some concentration! They had given me a relaxing pill before leading me down & now were injecting some pain killer & freezing my leg where they go in...

I had assumed Dr. Petrov was going to do my procedure, however, another doc came in... Dr. Martinov - handsome! :) (as is Dr. Petrov)... very kind and reassuring. He kept asking me if I was ok. There was classic rock playing in the background... cool, made me think of my guy & his love of classic rock... made me smile & that he was there with me in some way! Dr M punctured my groin - ouch! I could feel the wire tickling the inside of my ribs - freaky! I could see images on the monitors - pretty cool for this geek-girl! then there was the "this is going to hurt a bit" comment - HOLY COW!!!!! toe curling pain -he was inside my azygose vein and was ballooning it... SEVERE pain for about 6 seconds... used all my deep breathing yoga skills - BUT... unclenched my toes & wiggled them... hey - wait a minute - this doesn't feel like my normal flipper toe wiggle -am I actually independently wiggling toes - it feels like it!!! WOW ..... YIKES - more pain - He's inside my left jugular - balloon 1 (had 3)... breathe, breathe, breathe,... ahhh.... WAIT A MINUTE - most of my brain fog is gone... yes, gone... triple check... gone!!!! HOLY CRAP!!! WOW!!! .... ok... onto the right jugular... MORE PAIN across the top of my spine! yikes - 2 balloons here... didn't notice anything else on the table... hmm... The doctor is singing along with the classic rock throughout the whole procedure - this is awesome! I am glad I didn't get the extra pain killer - I was alert & watching the video & actually giggling & chatting with the doctor as he's proceeding - the right jugular is posing some problems - the stenosis is right at a valve & is not responding as well as he would have hoped... a stent was not possible as it would have meant the valve would be open all the time. Dr. Martinov assures me that he was able to open it to have only 45% stenossis & with the success of the left jugular & azygos opening 100%, he felt I should be fine. NO STENTS! WOW! The procedure took exactly 2 hours!

The nurses applied a pressure bandage... wheeled me buck naked & covered with a sheet to my hospital room & put me to bed to lie flat for 4 hours without moving my leg.... My cohort Jenn kept me supplied with water.... :)

Bedtime... I'll continue the story tomorrow :)