When I say my fiancé takes rat poison, I'm not kidding!

For those of you who remember, two months ago, Mike had a TIA incident and wound up in the hospital for a few hours.

Since then, he's run through a battery of tests to figure out what caused the attack. It's a general consensus that Mike is too young to have a stroke, so they're trying to rule out if it's the holes in the heart that he was born with. After the initial round of testing in October, he underwent a couple more rounds after my visit in November. He was also referred to a cardiothoracic surgeon to see if his heart caused the TIA incident. See, Mike was born with two holes in his heart. They've been monitored all his life and about 18-20 months ago - not long after we began dating - he was told that they would no longer needed to be monitored annually.

Today, he went back to the first doctor to have the results be discussed. His doctor was shocked that Mike hadn't seen the surgeon yet, because he was suppose to two months ago. In the meantime, Mike has prescribed rat poison, otherwise known as Warfarin. He'll may start that on Monday after he goes to an anticoag clinic at the Roald Dahl clinic. He had to take a blood test today to see if he can even handle it.

Meanwhile, my supremely awesome future mother-in-law went on the warpath. She went back to her ward (she runs the dialysis ward at Liverpool's big hospital, the Royal) and tried calling the surgeon's office and kept getting bumped to the answering machine. So she called other secretaries and the surgeon's secretary was apparently nearby and not answering the phones. So she went to the switchboard operator and forced a call through to the surgeon's secretary and proceeded to read a riot act on him. The secretary claimed not to know who Mike is, but said they would do an emergency appointment if they refax the letter. Mrs. Heaton goes back to Mike's doctor, who is also now pissed at the surgeon's secretary because he did send in all the required referrals. Then the secretary calls Mrs. Heaton back and has "magically" discovered the letter, which he claims they only got on December 2.

So the surgeon should review Mike's notes on Friday. If he feels that Mike needs surgery right away, it could be done on December 22nd. If he can wait, then Mike will have an appointment with him most likely on January 22nd to see if he needs surgery.

This all, by the way, prompted the following conversation between me and Mike:

Me: If they do surgery, nothing is keeping me away, you hear?
Mike: Sweetie...you can't do that
Me: Just letting you know ahead of time.
Mike: *sighs*
Me: What if I was to have surgery?
Mike: Umm...
Me: Your British ass would be on the first plane, wouldn't it?
Mike: If I could yes

Meg: 1, Mike ... we won't embarrass him with the score. ^_~

If Mike has surgery, it will be through a catheter to close the holes in his heart and hopefully that'll be that. I've already spoken with one of my supervisors at work, and he said that if the surgery happens after the first of the year that they can push my vacation up as priority given the situation.

It's been a very hard week for me emotionally (not just due to this), and so I wound up cradling Peekaboo and crying myself to sleep. I feel like a limp dishrag at the moment, and am probably going to be escaping the apartment for a few hours to process everything. Mike's a little scared and I am too. Mike will be going back for more tests and will have to get them frequently while he's on the Warfarin. Other than that, it's a waiting game right now.

Can 2009 be over with yet? Please?