Todd has a bicuspid aortic valve which he's not really been keeping a good enough eye on (what can we say, these are busy days), but which equally has never seemed to cause him problems and has never interfered with his yearly physicals; he has always been declared fit for duty. Well turns out that sneaky thing has had a mind and life all of its own.
An echo cardiogram last week revealed he has a severely dilated aortic root, (this is called an aortic aneurism) and a poorly functioning bicuspid aorta. After some confusion and a 24 hour delay due to a bout of stomach flu (for me and the kids, of course, right? When it rains...) we finally got some clarification on Friday afternoon of what this means, and what it means is heart surgery for Todd on Wednesday. Which can't come soon enough because his heart is severely dilated, don't like to say it, but beyond a size the office we were seen at has ever seen before. That's not something you want to be known for. You know you're special when you walk straight through the waiting room, into the office and are met by the surgeon. Yikes.
Quick illustration of the aorta and what a root should look like, because lord knows before today, I had no idea...
See where it says ascending aorta? All nice and uniform and then a slight bulge at the bottom where the root meets the heart? That's a healthy one.
And here is Todd's. I took a photo of the screen! His ascending aorta swells almost its entire length and by the time it gets to the heart, it's almost as big as the heart itself - it looks like he has two hearts.
So obviously that's not good. But... what is good, is somehow, by the grace of God, he thought to go get an echo out of the blue last week and we were able to see what was happening before it was literally, too late. It is somewhat unbelievable that he has been working and going about his life virtually asymptomatic with such a poorly functioning heart. And it is a wonder it didn't burst years ago. And bursting isn't good. Like, it's really bad.
So this week he'll undergo surgery. They will cut away the entire aortic root and replace it with a graft (like an artificial sleeve) and also replace his poorly functioning aortic valve (might as well, while they're in there) with a bovine valve.
Surgery is on Wednesday, it will be open cavity, he should be in the ICU for about 24 hours, then recovering in the hospital for 5-7 days, then home for about three more weeks. He's taken 6 weeks off work, but the expectation is 4 weeks. Work is great, everything should be fine, he has plenty of sick leave, we should get our pay as usual and insurance should cover the bulk of the treatment.
An odd thing to blog about... but, it's what we're facing next week and having it written down here makes it easier for everyone to see and visualize and then know what's going on! All will be well and we'll be in touch. Todd is ready to take care of it and find out how it feels to have a proper functioning heart!
