Miriam's Posts

This turned out to be very long, so if you'd rather skip the details--know that the main reason surgery is put off for a year is because of a clerical error/typo that made it seem like I was ~5 inches shorter!!! Part 3. Surgeons Before I saw the surgeon, I had to get some procedures. A longer CT scan to show more and a cardiac catheterization. All of that went fine and the cath doc said the results were expected. Nothing new that they didn't already know about. I met the first surgeon back in May, and after going over history and such with the nurses/assistants, he came in. He explained major points about my heart, what needed to be done, and then asked about symptoms. He spoke about this being the most common type of heart surgery, we do it all the time, you'll be fine. Then he said, time to get into the best shape of your life. I'm thinking surgery in the fall. Oh, uh, O...kay…. So my husband and I were processing this for a couple days...then I worked on telling family and friends. At some point, Jerry and I knew we had to start "getting ready." I wanted to do research, find resources, and finally started thinking about the getting my "affairs in order." We soon learned that the first surgeon we met with would be moving to Texas. So, I waited a little while and I had a question for the nurse, so I called his office and worked in asking whether or not they had a candidate for the surgeon position, because we really wanted to stay with that hospital, one my family has always had good experiences with and trusted. No candidates. So, I asked for other surgeon's names from her, and she gave me some that her surgeon trained/recommended. I did research and chose one that specialized in exactly what I had. I contacted them, and the first appointment the surgeon had was September 14th. So we spent the summer getting educated and organized. I found some of Adam's videos, discovered this site, and ordered his book, which I and my husband read. Meeting the new Surgeon This was a great appointment. He was smart, funny, yet down to earth. He described how he specialized in exactly what I had (which was why I chose him), and talked in a lot more detail about what that meant and what happens. At some point, he talked about dimensions of the aorta and said, you're short, 5 feet tall, so that means…. I said wait, I'm 5'5", with shoes. They all looked surprised and said, wait, you're how tall? I said, 5 feet 4 and ¾ inches. They said, that makes a huge difference! They said in their records, it said I was 5 feet. Later, Jerry and I thought that was really weird because all the records were from my my cardiologist and my primary care doctor who we've been with forever. The surgeon started saying, okay, 1st surgeon was wrong. He's a colleague and friend of mine, and I respect him, but he was wrong. You don't need surgery yet. You're heart is strong, with a good squeeze, and it's not time for surgery because you're symptoms aren't bad and your height means you don't fall into the surgery range yet. He said we need to get a better CT scan. The one you got isn't very good because it isn't made to take pictures of a moving organ. You need a gated CT scan, which is for structures that move. Also, we want to pin down the exact cause of the shortness of breath with a pulmonary study, because your lungs could be part of that and we need to find out how much shortness of breath is being caused by the heart vs the lungs. So, I got my marching orders, and he said, you'll follow up with my colleague who does the imaging and I'll probably see you next summer!