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Friday, September 19, 2008

Judi's Condition

Whew, what a week it has been.

Last Saturday, September 13th just before lunch Judi started having chest pains, and she was a ltitle short of breath. Being short of breath is nothing new, as she was diagnosed with Adult Onset Asthma 16 years ago. If it had been just these symptons, she probably would have just ignored it and got on with here day. However, after a while, the pain in her chest started radiating into her jaw, almost like a toothache. We'll all received those emails telling about how women experiece heart attack symptons differently than men, and the jaw pain is one of those things. So, Judi and Carl headed off to the Thunder Bay Regional Hospital.

Once admitted, Judi was assigned a doctor and given an EKG. When he listened to her heart, he heard a Murmur. Judi was aware that she had a murmur, as her family doctor had told her this a few years ago, but never made a big deal of it. The ER doc ordered more tests and Judi was admitted to the hospital. Sunday they did an Echocardiogram (ECG) - and put her on the cancellation list for a Stress Test. When all the bloodwork came back on Monday, it appeared that she had not suffered a heart attack, but Angina instead. However, Monday evening the chest/jaw pain returned and they again did the blood tests (if you have a heart attack, certain enzymes in your blood are elevated afterwards) and this time the enzyme levels were elevated, indicating that she did in fact have a mild heart attack on Saturday.

After reading the ECG, the doc determined that she had Aortic Valve Stenosis and the Stress Test was cancelled and an Angiogram Scheduled. On Thursday morning (the 18th) Judi had an Angiogram and the results showed that she has one Artery blocked and she has a Bicuspid Aortic Valve (2 flaps instead of 3). The Bicuspid Valve is something that she was born with.

So, right now we are waiting. Waiting for her to find out when she'll be going to a bigger center to have the Valve Replacement Surgery along with a Single Bypass.

Mom is in good spirits, all things considered. She has a telephone in her room if you want to give her a call. Post a comment if you have any questions, or send me an email. I am checking Judi's email every day, so if you send her one I will print it out and bring it to her to read.

I will update my blog every time we have something to report. Like I said earlier, basically we are waiting at this point. And, waiting sucks!

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