RJ's turn

To catch everyone up - RJ has been having some tests done lately to try and figure out why he has been having shortness of breath and overall fatigue for the last two years or so. I know, tell him to slow down, but you don't lose your breath while lying down and not question it. Went through a battery of doctor appointments, inhalers, stress tests, chest x-rays, all over the last 18 months or so.

Well, we went to the hospital yesterday afternoon for the test of tests - an angiogram. Karen had told me how painful/uncomfortable it was for her, but I dutifully didn't pass along those gory details until after his procedure. He was done by 5:15 or so, and I got to meet the cardiologist. After the lecture on why I need to spend 2x or more on health insurance premiums for the family and switch to a PPO plan (why don't I just give you my whole paycheck??), he told me about what was going on. He said RJ's diagnosis was an "aeortic regurgitation" - essentially a 'massively' leaking aeortic valve in the heart. This causes the heart to pump the blood out, but since the valve doesn't close all the way, it comes back in. The blood needs to be pumped out again a second time, which causes the heart to work twice as hard. They can fix some valves through a less invasive procedure, but the location of the aorta requires open heart surgery.

He then took me into the room (their new $3 million dollar operating room) and showed me the results of the test. There were four flat-screen monitors that had short 3-D video clips that I got to watch - "here's the heart, and the arteries, and the ribs", "here's the catheter and the dye", "see how it comes in here, well, it's supposed to go back out here, but it's not doing that", "and there's the dye leaking out down here". Sure makes a more compelling case for doing this surgery when you can actually see what is going on vs. trusting that it needs to be done. Of course, RJ didnt want to look....no, I didn't pass out, for all of you family members who are wondering! Funny how I can watch this, but couldn't watch them pull the IV out of his hand later in the evening.

Need to make an appointment with the surgeon, and followup with the cardiologist sometime next week. Keep you all posted with updates; no embarassing photos like we have of Karen - save those for a later date. Thanks for all the concern and phone calls ~