Unarguably, any number of things. I have a perverse and warped sense of humor, a total commitment to irreverence, a mind that lives out where the buses don't run......fill in the blanks yourself.However, I decided to post this after getting the 9th message asking what is the problem I have that requires some sort of surgery. Before this becomes some issue, I thought I might as well put it down here once and not repeat it over and over. Its not a big deal, but I'll give you the background and where we're at now so there's no "secret" about it. I wrote this earlier today in a responce to a PM from Brett and I reckon it tells the tale well enough.
About 4 years back, I went to the ER with severe chest pains and they were freaking out because of sounds (regurgitation) coming from the mitral valve. I was transferred to Mt. Carmel (where Karen now works) and they ran a boatload of tests. When they did the cath, they found that three arteries were completely blocked and the 4th 95% occluded also. They scheduled the bypass for the next morning. The operation went fine and although I had some arrhythmia problems, I was doing great. For about 6 months I fought that problem until they did an ablation, a laser surgery that took 5 hours, but basically stopped the irregular beat.....in my case, atrial fibrillation. I was OK til out of the blue (as many 'Catters will remember) I had the aortic aneurysm two years ago and even that wasn't out of hand as they caught it and though I came close to checking out, all worked out OK. It was vascular of course, but not related to the heart problems or the bypass.
About 6 months ago, I started having A-Fib problems again. The mitral valve is leaking and backwashing severely enough that its causing the A-Fib. We've been doing tests as we go along to determine the condition of the valve and such things. The other day I had another cath before going to a surgeon so that he'd have all the info in hand. The bypass is still as good as new, but the mitral valve needs to be taken care of. Now we get to the GoodNews/BadNews/GoodNews/BadNews part.
The bad news is the valve has to be fixed or else the heart will continue to enlarge the atrium and eventually stop. Spaw go belly up! The good news is that it appears the valve can be fixed instead of replaced, hence eliminating the need for "rejection" meds. Also good news, there are less invasive types of new surgeries to do the repair that do not involve cracking the chest and get you out in a couple of days and completely functional in about 2 weeks. The bad news is they can't generally do this on bypass patients (scar tissue), meaning they will go back into the open heart (split your sternum) method. The good news is that since the bypass is doing so well, there's a tiny (and I do mean tiny) chance that they can do the less invasive thing. The bad news is that the aneurysm makes me an even higher risk candidate. Round and round we go.........
TWO THINGS........I'm kinda' pissed over the whole thing since the valve was obviously a problem before, but after finding all the blocked arteries, it was never mentioned again. The feeling/thinking was that once the arteries were OK the valve would work well enough to last 25 years. Unfortunately, that ain't what happened, so now I gotta' do it again and I am frankly not looking forward to it. The chest cracking is bad once.....TWICE??? Geeziz, I don't feature it at all, but it beats the option.
Second, I feel great!!! If you were to meet me and go hang out or whatever, you would never know I have this problem because I appear to be the healthiest SOB you've ever met. I know I have a little less energy, but not much less and people who see me often cannot believe all this is going on. I can't either, but I feel the arrhythmias sometimes and I have seen all the neat pictures during the tests which show large quantities of blood gushing back around the valve. Its like, how can I look and feel this good and be this screwed up???? But I am.
So that's the story in a largish nutshell. I'll keep you posted on future developments!!! We will probably be moving on this before April.
Something will get me someday, but this ain't it. Don't ask how I know that, but I'm sure of it. Like I say, I feel great and I'm basically as normal as I get. I just didn't want any sillyass rumors floating about when there's no secret. I just don't talk about it much since there ain't one helluva' lot I can do about it!!! So, keep your fingers crossed and I'll keep you posted.
Spaw