Steven's Heart Problems.

Steven was born with 2 cusps is his aortic valve. Dr.'s think that his mother took some kind of medication while she was pregnant. When he was 20, The surgeons wanted to replace it( 10 days before we got married). They did the Ross procedure. They took out this pulmonary valve and put it inplace of his aotic valve and put a cadaver valve in place of his pulmonary valve. This was supposed to be the new and improved heart surgery. It only lasted 4 years before he needed another valve transplant. We used a different surgeon. She put a mechanical valve in place for his aortic valve( which was really his pulmonary valve). The surgery took forever. The Dr. said that there was ALOT of scar tissue. 8 years later, we find out that he has an aortic aneurysm. It measures 5.8cm. Normal aorta size is 2-3 cm. Steven's Dr.'s put him on beta-blockers to slow the tension in his heart to try and keep the aneurysm from growing more. Steven's heart already has had a history of stopping at night. So, they had to put a pacemaker in before they started him on the beta-blockers. Steven has been on the beta-blockers for 7 months. His aneurysm has not grow since then. The surgeon said that all of the scar tissue from his past heart surgeries is probably keeping it from growing. The Dr. want to operate if it grows .2cm more, 6cm in size. That is when the risk of his aorta bursting will outway the risk of having the surgery with him having so much scar tissue. They will replace his ascending aorta with a tube. He is still having breathing problems and all of the Dr.'s point to the other Dr.'s. He has a pulmonary specialist, his heart Dr, his heart surgeon, and the heart Dr' that deals with the electrical aspects of the heart. You would think that these geniuses could figure this out TOGETHER.





This is the largest I could make this picture. Maybe if you have a magnifying glass you can see. The short blue line in where Steven's mechanical valve is and the long blue line is the size of his aneurysm.