Life.
We all know that life is what happens when you're making other plans, and since I have not published a blog post in over two years now, there is much to catch up on. Unless you have been in a cave the past year, you know about COVID and how this potentially deadly virus has changed the landscape of our society and our world. Personally, I have been dealing with life. Trying to manage in a pandemic. Before that, trying to manage living as a middle-aged woman with a congenital heart defect and heart failure (HFpEF), being a high school English teacher and all the fun and frustration that entails especially with COVID and having to teach online most of this year...and blissfully ignorant of the fact that heart valve replacements don't always work. I have been doing so much personal journaling lately that I feel that I'm being redundant in this blog post. Truthfully, I thought that my valve--Judy St. Abbott as I named it--would last me the rest of my life. That I would never have to think about my valve ever again. I'd see Doc for my yearly echoes and quarterly appointments, medication changes and adjustments, and that would be it. I did not imagine that I would need my valve replaced again, and in the middle of a pandemic. For reals. This all started with gynecological issues that I don't really want or need to get into on a public blog. Simply, I was going to be having a hysterectomy back in February and be done with the literal pain my female parts were (and are!) still causing me. Because I'm considered "high-risk" due to the fact that I take Coumadin, and also a heart patient, I needed cardiac clearance. That meant an echo months before my usual echo date. I had my echo this year in January instead of the usual July. I thought that would be it. Get cleared, have surgery, be done. My hysterectomy got canceled because of the amount of COVID patients in the hospital. I went to see Doc for my follow-up a few weeks later, and he dropped the bomb as he often does; and as he often does, he was seemingly nonchalant about the whole thing. I sense that is his way of not getting too worked up over something that may or may not be all that serious, and I know he doesn't want to alarm me. "Debra...your gradient is eight...you have some mild stenosis of the valve...could be pannus growth..." All that he said was mixed up in my head, and what I quoted above is the basic gist of what Doc told me. "How do you feel about maybe not having your hysterectomy until the end of summer?" he then asked as he studied my report on his computer screen. I thought, Well, this must be pretty serious if he wants me to put the hysterectomy on hold! And then: "Let's do a TEE in June when school is out." Doc's nurse wasn't having that, and I thank her for going to bat for me in insisting that we do the TEE sooner. But as my own personal history has shown, Doc likes to do TEEs whenever he's concerned about what he sees on an echo, and then he usually is OK with what he sees on the TEE, and we go back to see-you-in-three-months-for-your-next-checkup. A month ago today I had that TEE, and it's been a whirlwind since. Again, not to be redundant with what I've already written in my personal journal, Doc did my TEE and the look on his face after he had finished as he sat on a chair across the short-stay room I was in is sealed in my mind. He had taken off his glasses and I could clearly see the look in his eyes: So many emotions from frustration, to concern, to every cuss word in the book. I was starting to regain my lucidity, and I won't forget that look. I had even heard him talking on his cell phone and telling the surgeon that I had "dysfunction of the mitral valve." So you know that pannus he had mentioned at my echo report appointment? Yup, my valve is clogged with pannus (which is basically a fancy word for scar tissue). One of my leaflets is stuck open, if you imagine having a door partially opened in a room. I won't get into the fact that Doc advised me to raise my Coumadin dosage to try to "unstick" my valve because he thought maybe there was a blood clot that was really the culprit. However, Doc did say the following Wednesday at my follow-up-to-the-TEE appointment that the pannus growth is impacting the valvular function. He insisted that instead of waiting for the surgeon's office to call me, I call them as soon as [you] get home. It was that serious. My husband and I met with the surgeon the following Monday, March 29. No-nonsense, the surgeon told us both that this surgery is needed. There is no way around it. I was amazed when he listened to my valve click as he stood about two feet away from me, his ear turned to my chest. Yup, the valve sounds bad. And here I am, ten days before surgery, knowing that I am about to embark on valve surgery number four. I'm such a rare case of having each of my valve surgeries not work that the surgeon's nurse is excited to meet me. Not kidding about that! Yesterday I listened to Pastor Rick's sermon on YouTube. Even though church services have resumed in-person (and outdoors), I still prefer to watch online, cozied up in my loungewear. And, I am still recovering (sort of) from Doc's angiogram on me from last Thursday when he poked me a million times just to try to access a decent femoral artery or vein area. The message was about "Withstanding the Winds of Life." You may know, if you've been reading my blog, that the name of this blog is multi-layered: The Heart Valve Buffet as in "one of each kind" but also "to be buffeted," as by a wind because I have had to deal with so much the last fifteen years with my CHD. I even learned yesterday that another definition of buffet is "to make one's way especially under difficult circumstances." (Thanks, Merriam-Webster!) I have been making my way through life's challenges, through a pandemic, and now through my next valve journey as I prepare (possibly) to have an On-X valve this time. Pannus formation is exceptionally rare, and seriously, only the Lord knows why all my valve surgeries have not lasted. Why my repair only gave me almost ten more years, why my tissue valve kept sticking to my heart wall, and why this valve is clogged with scar tissue growth. I don't know why God has given me this challenge, why I'm the one with the multiple surgeries and valves that have only lasted a short while, and why God believes 2021 is a good year for me to go through this again. I know that this surgery is also exceptionally risky: The risks of complications this time are higher than the other 3 (4) times I've been opened up. I can be positive and resolute and say that this surgery will be smooth, and that I'll be back here blogging again in a few weeks. The reality is that I may not survive this surgery. I can have the best surgeon in the world, but if my heart is tired and the Lord wants to bring me home, that is His Will. I do miss my mom and my grandma and my dad and all my friends who have gone before me. I commit my life to the Lord. My future is in His hands. I don't know if this valve journey that started fifteen years ago on April 11, 2006 will conclude on April 29, 2021. It will have a conclusion, but I don't know if it will be a continuation-- another chapter-- or if it will be the end of the book. Nevertheless, until my surgery in ten days' time, I will make my way through this difficult circumstance. |