Jan. 7th, 2025:
We just left the Cardiac Surgeon, my assumption was that I'd be scheduled for another round of imaging in six months and be given a rough estimate of when we might be looking at surgery. The surgeon went over all the results and was extremely pleased with the BP readings, weight loss and 8 months of being both nicotine and alcohol free, the extremely low sodium diet and clean eating switch. He said that he had looked over the latest imaging and measurements and recommended a follow up in two years. I was completely shocked. He said the progress made and the valve in my heart and overall heart health looked good and instructed me to keep up with everything and gave me some further guidelines, mostly to tell other doctors or surgeons should something need to be done and said to refer them to his office if they needed more info or if I was worried. Essentially he said "Your heart valve is a little different, its been that way since you were born and the enlargement is a result of that, it puts you at risk and we have to monitor that risk, but it could be possible that you may never need any sort of surgery" I asked him so many questions and he answered them. He told me to stop taking my BP 2x daily and said to do it 2x weekly, said essentially we want to watch, but that I am a "regular guy" and to take it easy, there were people in his own family with my condition and that he saw no reason for such frequent imaging based on the results. Me and my husband cried in the car, it feels like an entire year of having a gun to my forehead just flashed by us. I still have a lot of work to do to maintain and fight, but going from "see you in another six months so we can see when this serious surgery will be" to "see you in two years, keep up the good work, possibilities have opened up and you may not need it soon possibly at all but we are going to watch it and see" is so huge. I told my mom and dad and was so happy to finally be able to give them some reassuring news. It felt like the first time I could catch my breath in a year. While I'm not out of the woods and there are still a lot of things that will never be the same and a lot of hard work to do, for the first time I caught myself thinking about my future without a solid caveat.
Here is where my "New Year" starts. Cheers! And an unbelievable amount of gratitude and love to my husband, my family, my furry friends and community and to a rat and badger whom without, I'd be lost completely. Lets start some work!