Changed the name!

Sorry but cancer in the title of the blog was apparently a downer so welcome to heartingmyheart.

Today was the last day of visiting clients tho I'll be available by phone, text, IM, skype and this blog.  Looking forward to an easy few days before the BIG day.  Saturday I'm going to get my hair cut short short short.  I figure I'll be doing a lot of lying around (eating bon bons perhaps?) so a buzz cut will work.

As I did with my knee replacement surgery, I will paint my toes all the colors of the rainbow in order to woo the nursing staff.

Will bring cupcakes to the nurses Tuesday when I go in for pre-op, again a shameless attempt at attention and extra care.

David will spend the 1st night with me in ICU and my friend Sadia (who was a doctor in Pakistan) will spend the night the 2nd night.  Hopefully I'll be on the cardiac floor and out of ICU in 24 - 36 hours.

Bummer - no flowers in the Cardiac Care Unit.  What?  Too cheery?  Next they'll tell me I can't read a newspaper..

Hospital has wi-fi yay!  Trying to bring minimum necessary electronic devices but it's still a lot - iphone, kindle, laptop.  Hey I'm leaving the copier at home!  Give me credit!

I feel more psyched now especially since it was postponed and I've had more time to get organized.  I get the feeling it would be a waste to bring pretty pj's - oh well...

Very, very happy with my surgeon - well trained (Stanford & trained under heart surgeon rock stars) and very friendly (a rarity with surgeons...which is fine...I want the scientist.

Ooooo maybe I should get a facial too!

Surgery Date - yay!

So FINALLY all is healed and they are scheduling me for Wednesday August 4th.  Very happy to have the date since it's been a bit of a nightmare trying to schedule family, work and out of town visitors.  The docs say I'll be in the hospital for 5-7 days, I say 5 days.  I think everyone will be happy when this is behind us.

Valve Replacement

So now I have to have the valve replaced altogether.  Met with cardiologist who gave me the diagnosis.  Had an echocardiogram that confirmed the diagnosis.  Many, many blood tests for further confirmation.  Had an angiogram that both confirmed the diagnosis and told us my coronary arteries are clean as a whistle.  Surgery was scheduled for 5:15am today but in my pre-op exam on Friday, it was discovered the incision for the breast biopsy hadn't closed completely.  The chance of infection going into a heart surgery with an open wound is very high.  My surgeon put it bluntly, "If you get an infection in your heart, you die" so since I've learned to listen to surgeons, we've postponed the surgery until the wound closes.

No Cancer!

All turned out well - no sign of cancer but now we have another journey to undertake.....
I've had Mitral Valve Prolapse for my entire adult life.  It's a very benign condition,  I'd have to take antibiotics before any surgery and that was about it. Here comes the boring explanation - please skip ahead if your eyes start to glaze over. The mitral valve is one of two valves separating the 4 chambers in the heart.  The oxygenated blood leaves the lungs and travels into the heart being pushed through the mitral valve from the bottom left chamber into the upper left chamber.  Mitral Valve Prolapse means the leaflets (the thickness of pieces of paper) of the valve aren't closing all the way causing some of the blood to leak back into the lungs.  Apparently my leaflets have thickened into the thickness of cardboard and the valve is barely closing causing most of the blood to flow backwards BACK into the lungs causing a serious rise in the pressure of the lungs.  Additionally my heart has become enlarged (it's a muscle after all) since its now struggling to keep working.