Debbie's Profile

I had radiation treatment for Hodgkins Lymphoma in 1995. After trying to lose weight and months of waking up with shortness of breath, I had chest pain after a boot camp workout. I made an appointment with a PA cardiologist who did several tests and said I had moderate regurgitation in my aortic valve but thought my systems where from my lungs. She told me to see a pulmnist and to come back to see her in a year. My wife, who thought the PA was wrong and is also a nursing student, received an email at her school from a group of cardiologists looking for patients with moderate to severe regurgitation to do a study on. She told me about it, I called and got into the study. A group of three cardiologists reviewed my test results and said I had not moderate (like the other PA had originally said) but severe regurgitation and needed surgery to replace my aortic valve. This surgery could not wait a year. If I waited, like the PA had suggested, who knows what could have happened! This regurgitation is caused by the radiation treatment I had 20 years ago. The walls of my aortic valve are so scarred from the radiation that they can't close and cause the regurgitation.