Friends/family,
We checked into St. Joseph Hospital today up in Orange County and Brent had a CT scan of his chest to help his doctors figure out exactly what is wrong. It turns out he has an aneurysm (a blood filled dilation of a blood vessel) on his heart. The location is related to his last surgery (~19 months ago) when his pulmonic valve was replaced. The vessel wall has weakened (nobody can really explain why) and the aneurysm has been getting bigger and bigger the past few months, which is why you can see his heart beating more through his clothes. Basically the doctor said "This is really rare, I've only seen it 2-3 times in my life" (and he's not a young doctor!) and that Brent's aneurysm is the worst he's ever seen. The clinical case manager even came in and videotaped his heart beating for future research purposes. :) Brent told me he's been told his whole life by doctors that they've never seen a case like him, he always has weird things happen with his heart. Apparently he's always the "exception", never the norm. But Brent takes it all in stride, laughs everything off, makes his whole healthcare team laugh, keeps smiling, and is ready to face this surgery like it's a regular day.
When I sent my last email, we were hoping he would be able to have a more "minor" heart surgery, but now we know he will have to have a full sternotomy (the sternum will be divided) which is a full-on open heart surgery and he will be put on a heart-lung bypass machine. The surgery will most likely be Wednesday morning; I'll update everyone again tomorrow with the exact time/details.
We were not expecting this and our lives have been turned upside down the past 3 days! Brent was planning on moving into my house a few days before our wedding, but we made the tough decision yesterday that he needed to move in with me immediately so I could care for him best and he won't be able to move anything for a long time! Some very gracious friends gave up their Sunday to help us move and I have to say, it was pretty impressive how quickly we moved the majority of his stuff into my house! We also have a wonderful dog-sitter who offered to care for Sadie (our yellow lab) as long as we need help, which is a huge blessing because Sadie is like our child. :) We are so appreciative of all of you who have been so helpful and continue to offer help! We have a long road ahead of us, but it's been smooth so far because of the amazing people in our lives.
As far as the wedding, the surgeons/doctor said don't change the date yet as Brent could bounce back very quickly (he always does!) and we could still get married August 9th. We'll know a LOT more a week from now after we see how the first 5-6 days post-op go. We are more in love now than we were before and really are hoping to get married August 9th! Please pray for a speedy recovery!
So while it is disappointing that Brent has to have another heart surgery just 19 months after the last one, we do believe he will be fine and after this, we should be ok for 7-8 years. It really changes your perspective on life. Last week we were just going along, happily planning our wedding, looking forward to our lives together, not worried at all about the cardiology appointment last Friday. Since I see Brent most every day and he obviously looks at his chest every day, we didn't think the heartbeat was that much more prominent. Everyone else did, but we always remembered his heart beating out of his chest since he's missing a rib. We'll definitely be more vigilant in the future of any signs of heart problems! I honestly always thought I was pretty good at watching out for him and keeping track of everything, so I have to admit I felt badly for not being more concerned about this.
Please continue to pray for Brent, his medical team, and our families. Brent is doing great, our families are naturally concerned, and I am coping as best I know how - smiling and laughing with Brent and then crying to my friends. :-) It's comforting that one of his main healthcare providers in the hospital is a Cardiac Nurse Practitioner - she's been SO helpful and very supportive. I have a good friend coming up to sit with me during his surgery so I don't freak out the entire time, and I am very grateful for that!
I will update everyone again tomorrow - the surgeon hasn't looked at the chest CT scan but we spoke with the Nurse Practitioner. His doctor, surgeon, and the NP all agreed it's an aneurysm even before the CT scan. We are also hoping they'll be able to place some sort of prosthetic rib or shield in during the surgery, which would be great. We are trusting in God and know that while we may not know why this happened right now, there is a reason and one day we'll look back and thank God this surgery happened when it did. We are already praising God we saw Brent's cardiologist on Friday because a heart aneurysm is serious and needs to be repaired! Now I can't believe he was walking around like this! We are also so blessed because this CAN be repaired and it should be a shorter surgery (3-4 hrs) as opposed to some of his super long surgeries. And Brent recovers faster from heart surgeries than most of us recover from a cold. ;-)
Hope everyone is doing well, I'll continue to post updates and I appreciate all of the prayers, emails, texts, etc.
God bless,
~Rachel
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