bad heart? can't happen to me. no way. i was jogging, working out, cycling,
hiking....never had any symptoms that i was aware of. had high cholesterol,
but that was kept in check with drugs. absolutely can't happen to me.
but then i went in for a routine cholesterol test, and the clinic doctor says
"everything looks ok. except for that murmur. but you knew about that, right?"
denial. can't be a murmur. dumb clinic doctor. he probably just heard my
tummy making juice noises. i can't have a murmur.....just a week ago i finished
a 1000-mile bicycle tour across the southwest, including death valley in july.
couple weeks later went to the local va clinic to renew my cholesterol meds,
saw the gp, and that idiot heard a murmur too. i'm thinking, i've gotta stop
going to doctors after lunch. these jerks can't distinguish digestion noises.
decided i've gotta prove him wrong, so i agreed to the three-hour drive to the
va hospital. got my prescription filled, then went in for the echo. i figured i was
right when the echo tech asks me if i have a prosthetic heart valve. jerk.
you see a scar? of course not. murmur, my butt. cardio tells me stuff about
stenosis and regurgitation, but i'm not really listening. the test is obviously flawed.
that just confirmed it can't happen to me.
they were saying stuff like don't do any exercise, don't exert myself. going to
need immediate surgery. yeah, right. based on my "prosthetic valve?" screw
that, i'm going home and go jogging. i didn't keel over. see, can't happen to me.
i did let them schedule me for a tee in albuquerque. i was delivering some things
to a friend there anyway, so we can prove the doctors wrong once and for all.
hadn't been to albuquerque for some time, so took the opportunity to go hiking.
time to do sandia peak. it's only a 5000-foot climb. i'll show them. made the
top in about three hours, so see, can't happen to me. went in for the tee the
next day.
they confirmed that the first echo was flawed. but they found the aortic valve
was so badly calcified that it appeared to be prosthetic. this time the doctor
actually explained all this stuff. regurgitation. stenosis. let me listen to the
murmur (it was a tee so i hadn't eaten), and look at the color gradients on the
echo display.
finally started to accept there was something wrong. BUT. it's not that bad, right?
he's talking about maybe replacement, maybe. when? 5-10 years. but that's
doctor-speak for "i gots no idea, but i better cover my butt." ok, it can happen to
me, but not really. just hypothetically, sometime in the future. yeah, we'll do the
annual echo thing. watch for symptoms. but i'll never really need surgery. right?
anyway, the doctor says i can continue doing what i'm doing. go ahead and run
marathons if i like, as long as it's not competitive. that was in '05.
over the next four years, echos showed worsening condition, although i was
generally asymptomatic. any symptoms i had could be assigned to something
else...lack of sleep, too much stress, getting older, etc. after every echo, i'd
always force the doctor to admit i could still exercise as much as i wanted.
even though i'd accepted i had a heart problem, i still was in denial that i'd
ever need to get it fixed.
i'm not sure when i came around to accepting i'd need surgery. it might have
been after all my online research and reading on the forums here. i think because
i decided when it had to be done, that made it easier. it was my decision and not
the surgeon's. he just confirmed MY diagnosis. somehow that made it better,
easier to accept. one set of doctors was saying i could still wait, whereas i decided
it was time.
made the arrangements to go to india for a thorough inspection, the results of
which would confirm the need for replacement. i'd already made my
diagnosis, so i was in control. makes a world of difference. even went jogging
the day before flying to india. i guess that's still denial.
it turned out i was correct, and the doctors were wrong! haha! take that
doctors! by the time i arrived in india, my EVA had shrunk to 0.6 sq.cm.,
which is about the size of a mcdonald's drinking straw.
in a way, i'm still in denial. throughout recovery, i've consistently done more
than the doctor's said was appropriate. i guess i still need to prove them
wrong, so i'll start cycling early, or walking farther, or jogging, before they
want me to.
what? take it easy or you'll set back your recovery? can't happen to me.
once in denial, forever in denial. it just takes a different form.