Captain Tin Man's Journey to See the Wizard

OK, fair warning that this one might get long and a bit dry, but should be the last of the educational series. Dive in at your own risk. The ten years since finding out my heart is jacked has been both a blessing and great source of anxiety. Knowing it needs to be fixed, but not knowing when, is tough for someone like me. I've never really been "afraid" of surgery, but the limbo is brutal. If it's broke, then lets fix it! I now understand why that wasn't a wise option. I just went ten years without needing invasive intervention. Guess how long most bio-prosthetic heart valves last before you need another surgery? Yep...about ten years if you're lucky in your 30's. Overall, I've come to realize the wait has provided very valuable perspective and allowed me to work through the process and do what I do best...research! I was first referred to a local surgeon by my cardiologist a little over a year ago. The purpose of the consultation was just...

The aortic valve sits inside the aorta. The valve has three cusps that open to let blood out and come together to close the valve off. It's supposed to be a one way valve allowing oxygen rich blood to flow out to the body. It should then close tightly when the heart relaxes and refills. Think of it like a door. It should open wide to let everyone out, but then close tightly preventing anything from coming in. The bicuspid valve only has two cusps, often times the three cusps are present but two are fused together. With bicuspid valves, one of two things can happen (or sometimes both simultaneously). The valve can become narrow and calcified as the disease process advances, or it can become progressively leakier. Mine is very leaky. The blood goes out fine, but then leaks back in to the left ventricle causing the heart to work very hard. This results in the heart chamber getting really big and thick due to the extra work to pump a large volume of blood forward. Eventuall...

            To begin, thanks so much for visiting. I promise future posts won't be nearly as long as this one is sure to be. We thought it might be helpful to keep people up to date with some recent developments in our little world. Today's post will hopefully begin to fill anyone interested in with the happs of the situation and what to expect moving forward. Bottom line... My heart is a little broken down and in need of some upgrades. I need to "pimp my ticker". I know, right, it's great news there's actually one in there...even if it is the size of a pea and hard as a rock! Really though, I have a bicuspid aortic valve, which is a very frequent and fixable heart defect. It's actually the most common type of heart defect, present in about 1-2% of the population. It's likely some of you have it, too. Most people live an entire lifetime never knowing they have it, or there is no need to do anything about it. Mine just happens to be causing s...