Update on Mom's doctor appointment:

I'll give you the facts first. He said the pulse beat in her ankles was weak. Her heart and lungs are fine. He is suspicious of a blockage in the artery in one or both legs. Tomorrow morning we go back to the clinic and she has a deep leg ultrasound to look for a blockage in one or both legs. If they find nothing, the doctor won't be too surprised, but the pulse beat was weak enough that he thinks there might be something. If they find the blockage, the next test will be an angiogram. The dye will go into the femoral artery in the leg to take pictures of the blood flow. If there is a blockage, and medication will take care of it, that will be the first thing they do. If that is not possible, or if they do that and it does not work, the next step would be a balloon thingy type of insertion to open up the artery, and a stint (much like a short straw) put in place to allow full blood flow.

He said all this very quickly and quietly to me and then told her I would explain all of it to her after we got home. It was a lot to digest and he wanted to leave explaining it all to her, up to me. He doesn't want her alarmed about the tests. Mom hasn't asked me about what he said since we got home, and I don't think she remembers that he didn't actually explain it to her. I will probably explain it to her in the car on the way to the next test tomorrow morning. She really enjoyed the visit with him very much. He was very kind to her. He told her she was very nice looking for someone 86 years old. He just talked to her for a while to get a sense of how she processed questions both about the distant past and the present. She did quite well, as she always does. He could tell she was quite clear about her life and her surroundings.

He was impressed with her playing the piano at church every Sunday and also teaching a class of adults each week. He said the Spirit in her has kept her alive and in such good health for all these years. She told him he was right about that.

After the ultrasound tomorrow morning, we don't see him again until next Tuesday to get the results and then go from there. That's all I have to report. Jannice