About Me (In My Own Words)
This is Danny's mother, Mary, sharing his story. He is an active 19 year old who was diagnosed with Mild Aortic Stenosis at birth. Until his last check up, it had stayed in the mild range. Seven months ago, the stenosis was in the mod/severe range and now a regurgitation problem had arisen. They also discovered they needed to do a repair of the aortic root. He does 500 push ups and situps daily. He plays hours and hours of strenuous basketball, even dunking over and over on the rim. All this and still three days pre-op without a single symptom. We were and are- DEVASTATED by the news. He was supposed to have the surgery in May, 2010, but was first scheduled 6/2 and then rescheduled till 6/16 and now is scheduled for 7/1/10. The waiting has been tortuous especially due to his bad insomnia. He has been remarkably brave and strong dispite the suspected anxiety. This type of surgery is difficult at any age but especially for a teenager. I'm hopeful that Dan will continue this journal after his surgery, however; he is not up to sharing his story himself, at this time.
Surgery # 2
Well, I feel compelled to add to Danny's story since he had to have a repeat open heart surgery on 1/13/11 due to developing endocarditist. This was an even worse, scary scenario than the first surgery. He had been running fevers and experiencing chills and I had taken him to his primary physician 5 times before it was FINALLY diagnosed as endocarditis. I insisted on him being seen by his Cardiologist and he ordered all the blood culture testing (which finally had been done the night before at the emergency clinic). It all came to a head the day after Christmas. I wanted to take him to the ER that night but he didn't really feel he needed to go since he was on antibiotics from his doctor who thought he had mono initially and then developed a viral infection. I had mono when I was younger, and was very tired, but NEVER experienced all the high fevers and chills that Danny did.
I guess the upside is he is doing VERY well now and is back to his heavy work outs and, of course, long hours of playing basket ball. He is hopeful to be able to play on his new college team. The cardiologist said he would okay him if he would listen to any signs of problems with his heart. We are waiting to hear from the coach. He is really an amazing young man to have gone through what he has and kept fighting right through it. Hopefully, we have 15 years before he has to go through surgery again. As always, this is in God's hands.
More Info About Me & My Heart
More About Me
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I am from:
Madison Heights, Michigan