A Blast From The Past

OK, one more thing. Because, y'know, me.

I actually started this blog before my very first surgery in 2013, but things went quickly and it was difficult for me to get upstairs to the desktop computer and I just let it sit.

In making the last post, I noticed that I had made one entry and left it in draft form. Just for fun, and as a milepost of where I was before I even knew about the blockages in my arteries, here is that post in it's entirety.

It seems like a million years ago.

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September, 2013

About two years ago, I started getting chest pain when I exercised, specifically when I went for a bike ride. Having a history of heart disease in my family, my doctor and I decided to do a stress-echo test, the kind where you get your heart rate up to a certain rate, then you get off and they run an ultrasound on your heart. In this case, my blood pressure was very high from being off of one of my hypertension meds, and they just did the echo test. About that time, my GP decided to leave his group practice and his former employer insisted that he not contact his former patients, and the test got lost in the shuffle.

Two years later, after a stressful couple of months that included moving into a new house and the death of my elderly mother, the chest pains started happening more often and with much less effort, such as walking up stairs. One night after a nice dinner out, the pain started when we got home and lasted for more than an hour. A trip to the ER showed no heart attack or damage, but concern regarding the fact that I had aortic heart murmur drove the ER doc to strongly recommend I see a cardiologist immediately.

Within a week and another echo, it was clear that my heart murmur was the cause, and that I was looking at valve replacement surgery if I wanted to survive.

As I type this, I am getting ready to see a heart surgeon in the morning. I expect that I will come out with a good sense of what to expect, what could go wrong, how unlikely it is for something to go wrong, and a rough idea of the roadmap I will follow in this process. I expect that in four months from this moment, I will have recovered to a point where I can resume my normal activities.

I am 50 years old. I am a grandfather with one 4 year old granddaughter. I play frequently in a classic rock cover band. I have never had surgery more involved than removing a skin thing done, had never had an IV until I was in the ER ten days ago. And now, in the near future, I will probably be lying in an OR with my ribs cracked open and my chest cavity exposed. That is some heavy shit.

I am also not a doctor, and while I am trying to give a lay perspective of what his journey is like for me, please do not confuse me for a medical professional. I am trained as an engineer, so there is some commonality in how both doctors and I view problem solving, but I am not someone you should be taking advice from. This record is solely a data point of my personal experience.

I will try to update this blog as things happen, but obviously there will come a time when I will be unable to blog for a period of days. The goal is to record events while my memory is still fresh.

If you are reading this, my guess is that you either know me, or you are looking at or have gone through a similar experience. I hope I'm able to give some insight into what has become a pretty common procedure, just one that involves getting hit by a bus.

Wish me luck.

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