Update on Margaret

Margaret spent a comfortable night on Friday.  I met the specialist who was looking after her on Saturday morning.  She has had a mild heart attack and it appears that one on the chambers of the heart has been damaged.  She would be transfered to a specialist Cardiac ICU about 45 km away asap.

The transfer was made a 1.00 pm and I followed her to the Sunshine Coast Private Hospital where she was placed in an isolation ward in the Cardiac ICU.  I stayed until 5.00 pm but had to leave to avoid driving home after dark and to give Louis a brief walk as he had been on his own for nearly two days.  At 6.00 pm I was phoned by the Cardiac Specialist now looking after Margaret.  He told me that there appeared to be blockage in the blood supply to the heart.  Normally he would confirm this with an angiogram and treat the problem with stents or bypass surgery.  Margaret is to frail to stand an angiogram and certainly not surgery.  The only treatment is to try and increase the blood flow using blood thinners and to reduce her cholesterol level which was over 15 (in Australian Units 4.5 is normal) using increased medication.  This should reduce the chance of another attack.  In the next couple of days when she was more stable he would carry out a non invasive examination of her heart using ultrasound techniques.  When stable she would be sent home with increased medications.