Heartbeats Rhymes & Life

  Ain't nothin to it but to do it! 70's and sunny on a perfect Saturday *Lung X-Ray - check *Negative Covid test - check *Mental status - Alert and ready for action *Summary - Cognition grossly intact Summary: Patient appears optimized for the planned surgery. Further testing not required prior to surgery.   It's Monday morning, the 22nd. Snow is gently falling outside, a piping hot cup of coffee sits next to me and the reality of things are coming on strong.  It's not like I'm in denial about all of this, but it has seemed surreal since the first diagnosis. The speed at which all of this information has come about as well as the research, decision making and severity of the situation has made the last 2.5 months absolutely fly by.  Time is such a personal and situational measure of things and my time has felt like a movie in the sense that I walk around and appear to be completely normal to everyone else. I'll never forget what it feels like to appear normal a

  I have a date. A date with a surgeon! As of this writing it's March 1st and 24 days from now I'm scheduled to go under the knife for a Bentall procedure with Dr. Reece at University of Colorado to replace my aortic valve as well as the ascending aortic root with an On-X ascending aortic prothesis. The OnX Aortic prothesis  If you've been following along, you know that making a decision on valves as well as a surgeon has been occupying all of my mental space and has been the most difficult decision in my life to make. I mean, when do you 'get' to choose what type of medical device goes into your chest as well as when to have it done?!  It's been crazy to have caught the deterioration just before things go south and to make this mandatory surgery an 'elective' operation. In talking with my cardiologist last Thursday she said, "only bad things will happen if you don't have the operation sooner than later." She said there's no question yo