Laninga's Travel Blog

Twelve years ago I had a quadruple bypass. It worked fine, but over the years it was obvious that some blockage was building up again. So in April I saw a cardiologist in Denton for an angiogram, and had a stent placed. He had some difficulty with the placement but didn’t say more than that. So I thought we were good to go and started our summer travels. And I did well, until a week or so ago.

We were in Petoskey when the angina pain go so bad it obviously needed some work done, so we went to the ER. Since we were in a smallish town we didn’t know what to expect. Turns out the McLaren Northern Michigan hospital was one of the top heart hospitals in the entire USA! After some consults, we were turned over to their cardiologist whose specialty was difficult cases.

It was determined that the Dallas doctor didn’t do the best of jobs. Using the wrong placement tools, too much dye, and used only one but “grossly undersized” stent. So they worked me into the schedule, and after some delays (emergency cases had priority) he reworked the installed stent and added four more. After a day’s recover we were back in the motor home and feeling much, much better. Not totally fixed, but a significant improvement.

Thanks to the Petoskey medical community for getting me back on the road.