Thank you all for your kind thoughts and prayers. I assure you that they're much appreciated.
It really hasn't been a secret at all. This suddenness is all about timing. I've been waiting around, with my valve in the 1.3 cm² -1.1 cm² range for a few years now, waiting for it to dip under 1.0 cm². Last year's echo said I was at .84 cm², but repeat echoes from different angles said it was really 1.1 cm². It was still the only valve involved.
This year's echo showed me as a .74 cm². It now also shows afib, mild mitral and tricuspid regurgitation, mitral calcification showing, and "pauses" between heartbeats.
When they phoned me in July with the results, they said, "The doctor said to tell you your heart is normal." They didn't give me any details, which were to come with my cardio appointment. I took that to mean no valve opening or other major changes.
When I came for my cardio appointment five weeks later on August 4th, I got the rest of my results. He plainly hadn't reviewed them before that morning or the night before, because although I had known about the afib from watching the screen during the echo, it was apparently news to him. He wanted to put me on warfarin immediately (afib gives you a 6% chance of stroke) and send me to an electrocardiologist to look at my missing heart rhythms (I now have 2-3 second pauses as well), maybe for a pacemaker or defibrillation unit. He said my pressure gradient was 39mmhg (40 mmhg is standard for severe), so he didn't think the stenosis was severe. Of course it wasn't 40mmhg anymore - look at my mitral valve: my heart leaks now, and the afib keeps my ventricle from even filling properly in the first place. Cardiologists should be required to take plumbing courses (fluid dynamics in a closed system).
I told him there was nothing that was going to be done about any of that until the overall cause was fixed, because it just wouldn't make common sense. I only allowed him to give me Plavix for the afib (wouldn't be likely to stabilize Coumadin in two-to-three weeks, and it would create other critical and unnecessary issues with cath and surgery), and immediately dumped him. I contacted my prior interventional cardiologist (catheterization specialist), and my surgeon, who is now in Newark. I got all the paperwork for the doctors and hospital, and Pat and I got everything worked out at work so I will be on leave and she will be on a much shorter NJ Family Leave to be there and to help out as needed.
Then we went to Maine for a week, to get my head on straight (no computer there for VR.com).
So, there really hasn't been a lot of time or warning involved for us, either. Those who've been through the surgery may be able to identify with managing to set up cath and surgical dates and two leaves from work in less than two weeks. It's been an exhausting time.
I go in Monday at 6:00 am for the cath at 7:00. I'm supposed to stay over, and then I'm scheduled as first up on Tuesday to get the new valve. Darn shame these valves grow in such difficult-to-access places...
I did catch at least one of almost every type of fish on our lake, though. Saw our bald eagles, a moose, a whale breaching (in Eastport), and a beaver. Did some back-roading with the fully trail-rated Jeep Patriot (28 mpg - you can have both), swam and snorkeled off our dock (managed to actually touch a big smallmouth bass under one of the docks - they don't fear us in the water), finished spreading our sweet little dog's ashes where we couldn't access in the early summer due to flooding, and read the Uncle John's Triple-Ply Bathroom Reader in between (fascinating short subjects, very fun book series). What the heck. It doesn't all have to be about serious stuff.
Be well, my friends...
