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Date Posted: 17:20:22 07/29/07 Sun
Author: Janna Karsjens
Author Host/IP: 199.120.127.70
Subject: Need your prayers for Lord's strength and sustenance

Dear Brothers & Sisters,

I haven't been around much lately, mostly because of my husband's illness and declining health.

As most of you may remember, my husband, John Koestner, had a stroke last Thanksgiving Day. I am thankful for God's provision for me to be in the same room when the stroke hit, because we (myself and emergency personnel) were able to prevent any paralysis.

In February, we decided to take advantage of the fact that John has a 50% service-connected disability from the time he served in the Air Force during the Korean War era, and we started seeing the doctors and specialists at the VA Medical Center in Des Moines, Iowa. In March, he had abnormal results from the nuclear med stress test. The echo showed a mild weakening of his heart in the area of the left ventricle (the area that pumps blood to his body). In April, the angiogram showed that the arterial branch that feeds the left ventricle is 85% blocked, but because of the small size of the vessel and the close proximity to another open branch, they could not open or stent the blockage.

In mid-May, he was started in the 6 week outpatient cardiac rehab program. And that is when the real problems started revealing themselves. His blood pressure started fluctuating greatly; sometimes spiking real high, and other times dropping so low he nearly passed out. And with each of these incidents, he would become drenched with sweat although his skin temperature was cold and clammy and no presence of fever.

Two weeks ago, John had one of these episodes at church and nearly passed out. Aftewards, he acted and looked very incoherant. I talked on the phone with the cardiologist later, and he assured me that he was confident that these episodes were not because of his heart and/or blood pressure. He advised me to monitor John's blood pressure during these spells, if at all possible.

This past Tuesday early morning, John had another spell at home that caused a near-dangerous spike in his blood pressure, so I called 9-1-1. He was stabilized at the local hospital and then transferred to the VA hospital in Des Moines. We were discharged home Friday afternoon with no answers, because some of the "rule-out" lab tests will take 7-10 days to get results and John would be more comfortable waiting at home than he would be in the hospital environment.

I did have the opportunity to see, on a consultation request to a specialist, that besides the history of stroke, John was displaying the "features consistent with vascular and Alzheimers dementia."

Dear friends, I have suspected beginning stages of Alzheimers in John for a couple of years, but never have been able to get him tested for it. And the dementia is increasing in frequency and severity. So my prayer request is that the Lord will grant me wisdom & knowledge on how best to help John and grant me His strength and sustenance so that I don't collapse from the load.

Thank you.

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