Steve was able to get in with our primary care doctor on Tuesday, 9/6/16. They did blood work, a urinalysis, and gave him an EKG. They thought that his upper valves were working harder than his lower, so he was instructed to make an appointment with a cardiologist. He did and that appointment was scheduled for November 3, 2016. Wait, what!?! It's only the first part of September, you could have a heart issues, but you can't get in to see a doctor for 2 months?
On Thurs, 9/8 around 6:45pm - we remember vividly because it was the first Denver Broncos game of the regular season and we were at our neighbors watching the game. The PCP called and said that he wasn't sure about his lab results. With the initial results he needed to stop drinking alcohol immediately (I literally watched this puppy dog pout come over his face as he poured his beer down the kitchen sink) and no ibuprofen. He was concerned about his liver, but also wanted him to come back and have more blood work done to rule out hepatitis. He said that his urinalysis didn't show protein, but I interjected and said there's no way. He asked "How many heads of beer would you say made up the frothy urine?" I quickly replied "9 or 10!" The PCP asked Steve how far away we were from the office and asked if he could meet him at the clinic in 15 minutes. He meet up with the doc at 7pm and did two more urinalysis - both yielded VERY high levels of protein. So then he was instructed to make an appointment with a nephrologist, a kidney specialist, as soon as possible. And also prescribed him 20mg of Lasix, to help with the edema, and told to get it filled and start taking it that night.