Our Big Surprise!

I had my echocardiogram the morning of July 24. I asked the clinician who performed the test if she saw anything I should be worried about, and she carefully informed me that, yes she may have seen something "interesting" about one of my valves, but she would have to have a radiologist review the information to see if it was anything to worry about. I left my appointment convinced we hadn't found anything to help with my diagnosis here. Turns out I was wrong. By early afternoon, the clinic had called home and scared the spit out of Deb by telling here I needed to contact them to see a cardiologist immediately. She called work, had me pulled out of a meeting I was in, and the big surprise began to come into focus. When I called the clinic, they told me I had aortic valve stenosis and I needed to be seen by a cardiologist within the week. I didn't have any idea what they were telling me, but I set up an appointment for July 28 with Dr. Brian Ip at Minnesota Heart at Fairview Southdale. In the meantime I started researching what aortic valve stenosis was. I quickly found out it wasn't good and there were several different kinds of it. One kind was caused by poor eating habits and bad lifestyle choices. Another kinds was caused by a congenital condition known as Bicuspid Aortic Valve Disease. Neither of these seemed possible since I wasn't in poor health or was I aware of any genetic condition in my family related to BAVD. As I reviewed more, it appeared highly likely that the only "treatment" for this problem was an aortic valve replacement procedure which required open heart surgery, bypass, and all the associated complications. Waiting from Friday to Wednesday for my cardiologist appointment was a long, scary few days. Many bad scenarios passed through our imagination and nothing looked too encouraging for our long term options. We had no idea if this was an immediate problem, or something that could wait, but based on the urgency of the clinic, we figured this wasn't a wait several months sort of problem. The cardiologist was up next.