Well, I finally got to meet with my cardiologist yesterday. First time since his associate *dropped the bomb* on me the day after Christmas (some present, eh?).
He went over the echo findings with me in some detail. He is managing my case as moderate aortic stenosis. (peak-to-peak gradient of 44 mm Hg, mean gradient of 24 mm Hg, and AVA of 1.0 cm).
At this point, he is advising a *watchful waiting* approach, with a follow-up office visit in 3 months and another echo in 6 months. He recommends no changes to activity levels (well, he did say my 7 day per week work outs should be reduced to 5 days, with walking on the other 2. . . ). He says that at the present time the risks of surgery and the other changes required after surgery are worse than watching and waiting. His comments are something like ". . . there is little to no risk until symptoms occur, then we need to fix it soon. You'll know when, as symptoms won't be subtle. In the meantime, we'll do follow-up echo's every so often to be sure nothing changes for the worst without giving us a sign."
So, I guess that means that I have time to get used to what will be. Cardio (of course) said he cannot really predict the timing, just that his guess would be years, not months. Maybe we'll know more after the next follow-up echo. I will be regularly watching the boards here to learn all that I can to be prepared when the time comes.
My thanks to all and my prayers are with you all.
He went over the echo findings with me in some detail. He is managing my case as moderate aortic stenosis. (peak-to-peak gradient of 44 mm Hg, mean gradient of 24 mm Hg, and AVA of 1.0 cm).
At this point, he is advising a *watchful waiting* approach, with a follow-up office visit in 3 months and another echo in 6 months. He recommends no changes to activity levels (well, he did say my 7 day per week work outs should be reduced to 5 days, with walking on the other 2. . . ). He says that at the present time the risks of surgery and the other changes required after surgery are worse than watching and waiting. His comments are something like ". . . there is little to no risk until symptoms occur, then we need to fix it soon. You'll know when, as symptoms won't be subtle. In the meantime, we'll do follow-up echo's every so often to be sure nothing changes for the worst without giving us a sign."
So, I guess that means that I have time to get used to what will be. Cardio (of course) said he cannot really predict the timing, just that his guess would be years, not months. Maybe we'll know more after the next follow-up echo. I will be regularly watching the boards here to learn all that I can to be prepared when the time comes.
My thanks to all and my prayers are with you all.