It seems like we’re having lots of heart-to-heart talks with you lately:-) . Gene saw Dra Yap again on Thursday afternoon. She wanted to redo the echocardiogram her technician had done so she could see it herself. She saw that one area of the heart has weaker contractions than the rest of the heart. One possibility is that there could be some blockage there. She thinks that if there is it would probably be only one blood vessel. Gene has been able to quickly climb long, steep hills with no pain and hardly getting out of breath. But, that apparently doesn’t mean there is no blockage.
Results from the Holster 24 hour heart monitor were back. Slowest rate of heart beat per minute (bpm) was 33 which Dra Yap says is dangerous and thinks was the cause of the heart attack. Also, during those 24 hours there were 71 times when his heart paused for more than 2 seconds (2.44sec) She said that that also is dangerous. Gene says, “When you are monitoring your pulse and the heart doesn’t beat for 2.44 seconds it seems like a VERY long time!” The final advice of Dra Yap was that there is no medicine to speed up the heart and that the only solution is a pacemaker.
The doctor in the city, whom Dra Yap says is more experienced than she is, had different ideas. She said that the times of slow heart rate are not a problem because the monitor showed that they were of short duration. She also advised against a pacemaker because the slow heart rate did not result in loss of consciousness. And that pauses of 2.44 sec are not a problem.
Both docs recommended that Gene have an angiogram to be sure there is no blockage. Both docs recommended ablation. Doc in the city said that if Gene considers ablation it should only be done at one of two hospitals in the States where the doctors have a lot of experience in doing that. Gene researched ablation just a few years ago and decided against it for various reasons and is still disinclined to do that. Ablation is where they put a wire though veins into the heart and cauterize around the ends of the vein where they enter the heart to prevent stray electrical signals from traveling up the veins to the heart. That could maybe cure the heart fibrillation that Gene has had for nearly 30 years. But, there are negatives to doing it.
So present plans (subject to change of course) are to spend this coming week in the city where we buy supplies, and where we can get Bible lessons xeroxed so they can be made into books at our tribal location. We will also buy a few months worth of supplies, and Carol will get some dental work done. Then we will (Lord willing) fly in to our home in our tribal village and put our office girl, whom we recently featured, to work cutting the xeroxed pages in half, drilling the holes for binding with twine, and then sewing the books with the help of some other girls. There are also other urgent things we need to do in relation to preparing teaching material for Manubu Bible teachers should Gene’s heart problem take us away from the tribe for a time.
Then probably after a week or so doing all that we will fly to Manila (as the Lord wills) to see the cardiologistelectrophysiologist at the Heart Institute that the doc in the city has referred Gene to. And then, ????
Gene has been doing well – no more pain. As always for the past nearly 30 years, spells of heart fibrillation as well as spells of normal heart beat.
Please PRAY that we will be able to find a copy center in the city that will do a good job of copying the Bible lessons. The last batch we had copied were so poor that we had to discard about five reams of copies and print those pages on our laser printer.
We can’t express how much we appreciate your prayers and all the emails assuring us of your prayers. Please continue to PRAY – for strength and God’s protection in these days ahead, and for wisdom for the doctor in Manila. We move forward in confidence that our Almighty God is in control!