A pothole in the road of life...

I debated whether or not to even blog about this topic. This blog is about my family, and although life with a toddler and a baby has its obvious ups and downs, for the most part this blog is extremely positive, showing the happiness and good times in our family. But for those family and friends that read this blog, I want to keep you all "in the loop" so to speak, because I got some bad news last week personally, but I can't imagine moving forward without the support from all of you who chose to offer it.

I saw my family doctor over a week ago, due to having a few episodes of chest pain, which was pretty alarming considering I'm only 27! Well, my doctor assured me she was "85% sure" it was just bad acid reflux, but also did an EKG in her office. Unfortunately, my EKG was abnormal, and she heard what sounded like a murmur when she listened to my heart, so she referred me to a cardiologist for some testing.

This past Tuesday, I went in for a cardiac echo (ultrasound of the heart) and a stress treadmill test. The good news is - the pain I was having WAS reflux, because after starting some meds for that, it has gone away, and my treadmill test was completely negative.

The bad news is, my resting echo showed my heart was abnormal. After another diagnostic test, the cardiologist told me I had an atrial septal defect which essentially is a hole in my heart, in between the 2 upper chambers. He is concerned because already, my heart is showing early signs of heart failure, because the right side of my heart is starting to enlarge (which happens because the heart muscle has to work harder to pump the blood that is being shunted the wrong way in the circulation of the heart), and once that happens, it can lead to pulmonary hypertension = high blood pressure in the vessels between the heart and lungs.

The good news (yes there is some!) is that I am very lucky to have this diagnosed now, considering my initial symptoms that led me to the cardiologist are not related to this defect. He told me a lot of people that have this start to have major problems once they reach their 40s and 50s, and by that time, the heart failure is very advanced and they can be very ill.

So the plan now includes a few things. Chris and I are meeting with Dr Robertson, the cardiologist who diagnosed me, this Thursday in his office, and then we will be scheduling a few additional tests. The first will be a TEE or transesophageal echo, to get a better look at the hole in my heart and see how big it is. The second will be a right heart catheterization to assess the level of heart failure by looking at the blood pressure on both sides of the heart, and looks for pulmonary hypertension by placing a catheter in the pulmonary artery in between the heart and lungs.

Once we have those 2 tests out of the way, we can decide which way would be the best option for closure of the defect. Luckily, there is a pretty new procedure that is FDA-approved, which involves placing a closure device in a cath lab procedure, similar to the process of a balloon angioplasty or a cardiac stent. And unfortunately, if that procedure is not an option for us, then we are faced with needing to do open heart surgery to patch the hole directly. Several things will determine which route we will take - the size of the hole, primarily, as well as how much damage there is to my heart and blood vessels.

So now, we wait. One appointment at a time, one procedure at a time. Obviously this news came as a huge shock to me, and our family too, but it is out of my hands. I am trusting that I am in excellent, capable hands of a great cardiologist who will fix this, and I know that I am lucky to have this diagnosed now before further complications came up. All I can ask is that you keep me, and my family, in your thoughts and prayers, and I will keep you updated.