Teri. Welcome to this wonderful community! I'm sure you are feeling all kinds of emotions as your husband's surgery approaches. It is so great to have such a gathering of success stories, here, to lean on! Please feel free to ask any and all questions. This is a most caring and helpful bunch!
I have 3 children in college. The youngest is an athlete and playing her sport in college. I paid cash to have her echoed because I just couldn't let her start college not knowing. There was no murmur, doctor wouldn't sign for an echo so insurance wouldn't cover it. I frankly didn't care about statistics or probabilities.....if there was one kid out there with a BAV from a parent, then my kid was getting checked out!
It seems that every medical community is different! Some will request an echo if the parent is afflicted. Mine would not. Mine will only echo if there is a murmur or symptoms. That said, I didn't mind paying cash, because the results are mine alone. The insurance company has no wind of them.
I don't know if life insurance has changed in 25 years, but with my detected, healthy BAV (I had quite the murmur, but not detected unti my late 20's), I had no trouble getting life insurance. Once it was diseased, there certainly would have been difficulty. I had no trouble getting health insurance coverage, either...... I don't believe it was even treated as a pre-existing condition. But I've had stable coverage for the last 6 years, and the stenosis came on slowly for me. (my surgery was necessitated by the AS, aortic stenosis).
Just this summer my 2 older children were echoed in a university study on BAV in the family (in Seattle). For me, it's mostly about the fact that knowledge is power. And. Endocarditis seems preventable so I wanted to be sure my kids didn't need prophylactic antibiotics before something as simple as the dentist.
But. as they say...be careful what you ask for. None of my 3 has BAV. But. The oldest, a son, has an enlarged heart (deemed athletic heart by the Research cardiologist, but this boy is not
that athletic). The middle, also a son, has MVP!! No murmur. Not very significant, yet, and quite prevalent in the general population. Very good to know, though. And then the daughter has trace AI (aortic insufficiency). So I have more investigating to do with the boys. But I know. I cannot tell you how much better that makes me feel. I know. Every little complaint I hear, or experience they have, or visit to any doctor....... we can check it all against what we know is going on inside of them.
Please do wait until after your husband has gone through recovery. I waited with my boys until after. I had an uneventful surgery and textbook recovery. My oldest, who couldn't be there, said that I really set a great example for my children as to how to approach and survive such a situation. Let your husband's experience (which will be boring and textbook like mine, right??
) be a guage they can refer to before they get any news. My children are unphased by their results. They feel healthy. No doctor has let them think otherwise. Knowledge is power. They know it. They trust me with it.
So, focus on your hubbie for now. Ask some more questions. Breathe!
Marguerite
