Monday, May 19, 2008
Friday, May 09, 2008
The long dry spell....
Shortly before my last posting.., I had received positive confirmation of a PFO... Here's an article about them....
Let's rewind... I've been bent... Despite doing everything right, and having no failures, I have a history of DCS... Specifically type II decompression sickness, which indicates neurological imparement. Over the past 5 years I had three major episodes all manifesting with identical symptoms and diagnosis, cerebreal arterial gas embolism, or C-AGE. This manifested in me like a stroke, with initially predominately left side paralysis, and progressing in two instances full paralysis. In all occasions symptoms rapidly diminished once on Oxygen, and in two of the incidents I eventually took a ride in a decompression chamber with full recovery and return to diving.
So.., on Valentine's Day, 2008 (talk about irony), I had the PFO closed. I checked into the hospital early in the morning, by noon I was in a room recovering. Around 5pm I was up walking around and hungry as heck. The next morning I was discharged, and resting at a local motel in Lakeland. I drove back to Ft. Lauderdale the next day and was back to my normal cardio routine the next day.
Over the next 2.5 months, no diving for me, to allow the implant to embed itself into the heart walls and seal off the holes...
Visited the doc on 4/21 for a follow TTE w/ bubble study and I received the ok to return to diving.... that weekend, my normal dive buddy, Brian, and a few other folks from Scubaboard headed south to the Keys for a healthy dose of wrecks... We had a blast returning to the Bibb, Duane, Speigel Grove, and the Eagle...
Let's rewind... I've been bent... Despite doing everything right, and having no failures, I have a history of DCS... Specifically type II decompression sickness, which indicates neurological imparement. Over the past 5 years I had three major episodes all manifesting with identical symptoms and diagnosis, cerebreal arterial gas embolism, or C-AGE. This manifested in me like a stroke, with initially predominately left side paralysis, and progressing in two instances full paralysis. In all occasions symptoms rapidly diminished once on Oxygen, and in two of the incidents I eventually took a ride in a decompression chamber with full recovery and return to diving.
So.., on Valentine's Day, 2008 (talk about irony), I had the PFO closed. I checked into the hospital early in the morning, by noon I was in a room recovering. Around 5pm I was up walking around and hungry as heck. The next morning I was discharged, and resting at a local motel in Lakeland. I drove back to Ft. Lauderdale the next day and was back to my normal cardio routine the next day.
Over the next 2.5 months, no diving for me, to allow the implant to embed itself into the heart walls and seal off the holes...
Visited the doc on 4/21 for a follow TTE w/ bubble study and I received the ok to return to diving.... that weekend, my normal dive buddy, Brian, and a few other folks from Scubaboard headed south to the Keys for a healthy dose of wrecks... We had a blast returning to the Bibb, Duane, Speigel Grove, and the Eagle...
Photos courtesy of Kelly and Scott McDuff from Reef Photo...
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