Health Check in

The last time I blogged, I gave an update to my weird "almost passing out in Vegas" incident (http://badluckfoot.blogspot.com/2016/05/what-happens-in-vegas.html).  To catch you up on the post, I almost passed out on the way home from Las Vegas and was taken to the Emergency Room.  Everything looked normal and I was released to fly after midnight.  I got home late the following day and experienced the same "almost passing out" later that same day.  I went straight to the ER close to home and they also found nothing out of the normal.

After those events, my primary care doctor put me on medication to control my blood-pressure and referred me to see a cardiologist as a "just in case". The cardiologist ran various tests, I was on a 24 monitor, and then a 30 day monitor but everything was normal. I was also given a echocardiogram (essentially an ultra-sound of your heart) and they discovered that I had an abnormality with my aortic vale (the one that stops oxygenated blood from leaking back into your heart as it is pumped out to your body.

This condition is called "Aortic Insufficiency" and is a congenital defect of the heart. The valve in question is normally tricuspid (three leaflets making up the valve) and in my case, I only have 2 of the 3 leaflets. This "regurgitation" causes the blood that is supposed to be heading out to my body, to leak back into the ventricle and then have to be pumped back out again.

The cardiologist's recommendation, given that I didn't have any other particular symptoms, that it would be best to just keep an eye on it and visit with him every 3 months to check in. In the meantime, I was not to undertake any strenuous exercise and should limit my "working out" to brisk walks.

Since that time, I have noticed that if I am carrying heavy items, or if I am walking uphill (like I do 2 days per week heading to work) that I get very short of breath, very quickly. Also, about a month go, just before I started my walking routine on day at the YMCA, I had a recurrence of the "almost going to pass out" incident. I sat for a while, drank some water and felt better. I had decided that when I went back to the scheduled visit with the cardiologist (in mid November) that I would bring these up.

Fast forward to last Thursday, when I suddenly passed out completely (I'm not putting too many details up on the blog but you are welcome to message me if you are curious for more information). When I came to, I had no recollection of the previous moments and was daed and confused. I had no warning signs, no chest pain and none of the sensations that I had on the previous events.

I contact the cardiologist and they said that since I completely passed out, I needed to go straight to the ER to be fully evaluated. As you can probably guess, after most of the day in the ER, with batteries of tests and observation, there was absolutely nothing out of the normal with any of the readings.

I called the cardiologist back on Thursday evening but didn't hear back from them until Monday. They were able to fit me in the next day, and when the cardiologist heard the full story, he came to the conclusion that it was time to pull the trigger on permanently fixing my heart valve. As you can probably just guess from the sound of the procedure, this is not something that is done in an outpatient visit. In fact, the procedure to replace a heart valve is full-on open heart surgery (break the sternum, open out the ribs, by-pass the heart, stop the heart, replace the valves, restart the heart, re-divert the blood back into the heart, wire the sternum closed and sew it all up).

The first step in the whole process is to have an angiogram (which is where they pass multiple catheters up your femoral artery (through a puncture in the groin) and then snake all the way up into the heart where they release contrast dyes and take tons of x-rays to look for blockages). The rationale is that if they are going to have your heart out of your body for the valve replacement, they might as well take care of by-passing any blockages while they're at it). In addition, in my case, they would be able to watch the valve regurgitation (by releasing the dye into artery after the valve and watching how much of the dye leaks back into the ventricle).

So, my angiogram was today, and there are no blockages and the doctor shoed me on the screen how the blood leaks back through the valve into the ventricle (it was pretty amazing to see that in real time). They recon that on every heart beat, about 50% of the blood that is destined for me body actually leaks back. That is why I get short of breath! I'm at home now and have to rest for 2 days, then I can start doing some light walking and slowly get back to "normal"

Given that none this directly explains my passing out (it is not unheard of for people with this leaky valve to have feinting spells but it is not common) I am currently unable to drive or operate machinery. In addition, I have had to cancel my trip to Ireland that I was due to fly out this coming Friday :( While both of these things is a royal pain in the ass, it is for the best as a) I wouldn't want to pass out while driving on an open road with my kiddos in the back or b) be featured in the nightly news for causing a plane to have to redirect somewhere in the mid-atlantic.

So that brings you up to speed (if you managed to stay reading this long). I will need even more prayer and support after the procedure as the convalescence time may be many months.