Irma L. Olguin Jr.

Now that I’m insured with Kaiser instead of Blue Shield, my health management has changed quite a bit.

Whereas my last neurologist had a plan to monitor the stenosis in my cranium with regular MRAs every four months, and deal with my blood-flow issues medicinally (with asprin and statins), now I don’t know what the hell is going on.

Whereas a team of specialists at Stanford decided the risk benefit ratio for a surgical option was not in my favor, now the option is back in play.

Here’s what’s happened since I last wrote:

I signed up for a primary care physician who referred me to a neurologist and they both ordered a fresh round of blood tests, and my neuro-lady ordered a CT angiogram (that’s a cat scan of my head).  The way it works is, I lie down and they slide me into a giant tube that shoots x-ray beams at my head.  A contrast agent is pushed into my IV and a computer nearby captures all the pictures.  Sometimes they ask me to hold my breath but I’m not allowed to move for the duration of the time it takes for all the images to be captured.

It took a very long time to get the results back, but when I finally did, there were some conflicting opinions as to what was going on.  Apparently, the radiologist that read the results and the one that actually wrote the report interpreted the images differently.  So my neurologist decided to consult with another neurologist and the two of them also came up with different answers.

How nice, right?

According the report, there is an aplasia (a peice that’s missing) of the right anterior cerebral artery (we knew this already), a narrowing of the right internal carotid artery (knew that too), and stenosis of the right supraclinoid segment (didn’t know that).  They also seem to think I may have a connector between the left and right halves of the brain that we previously believed was missing.  That would be a good thing, but I consider this unconfirmed since one radiologist said,  “Yes, it’s there,” and another one said, “I don’t see it.”

Supraclinoid Segment Internal Carotid Artery

So, now I go see an expert.  Dr. Bebensee (my neurologist in Fresno) is sending me to see Dr. Rao in Redwood City.  I think everyone agrees that it would be nice to hear from someone who’s job it is to deal with medical horrors like myself.

I did a little research about the expert I’m about to see and this is what I found:

Dr. Vivek Rao
Assistant Chief Neuroscience and Neurocrital Care
Director Redwood City
Video of the Kaiser Model for Comprehensive Stroke Centers
(it’s pretty long, but informative)

My appointment is in Redwood on January 9th, 2009.  I’ll post what I learn.  Until then, wish me luck!