It's another up-and-down time. Bill had his check-up with the transplant clinic on the 28th. They did a pretty thorough physical and other than him being tired again (like he was before the procedures in October) they seemed to be pretty pleased with his condition. Because of the fatigue he will probably be bumped back up on the list.

He also enrolled in a study by the company that manufactures his pacemaker to monitor it's effectiveness. More on this a little later.

On the 29th, he finally had his appointment at the VA for his disability evaluation. We were actually quite pleased with them. All we had heard was that the VA was terrible and you had to wait and wait and wait. His appointment for an EKG was at 9:30 and at exactly 9:30 they called his name. He came out about 10 minutes later and motioned to me and said the EKG showed he was in the middle of a heart attack and we were headed to ER. The nurse kept asking him if he was in any pain and he said no. But, if seemed that if they were that concerned about him, they would not have had him WALK to the ER. It turned out that the technician had not compensated for the pacemaker even though Bill had told him about it and it really messed up the readings. He got to his other appointment with 5 minutes to spare and at exactly 11:00 the dr. came out to get him. She wasn't supposed to tell him her opinion, but she said that since his condition does not just happen overnight, it was definitely service connected. So we should hear something about that before long.

Now, about the pacemaker people. They were doing a reading from his pacemaker and saw that he had an episode of v-tach on Dec. 10 but the pacemaker paced him out of it without the diffibulator firing. His heart rate had gotten to 182 and the upper level of the device is 140.

Today, at his regular check-up with Dr. Lan, the Dr. came into the room immediately, even before the nurse. We had walked by him in the hall and evidently he saw something he didn't like. He listened to his heart and started a reading of the pacemaker and then looked at me and said that he was admitting him, that he was having another episode of v-tach. He called 911 and we rode across the road to the ER. They did not have to shock him this time, the amiodorone worked by itself. Everyone was wondering why the pacemaker did not kick in and the reason is the high limit setting. Since it was set to 140 and his heart rate did not get past 134 it did not trigger the vigorous pacing. So, the limit has been changed to 128 now.

He's in CVICU for at least tonight. I don't know what the plan of action will be yet. Dr. Lan had not come in the last time I saw him and I can't see him again until 9:00. So, that's it for now. I'll keep this updated as I know more.