Setting a Date

I got a call from my surgeon today, to follow up on the CT scan from yesterday. The CT was needed to "tell exactly" how bad my blood vessels in my chest, neck and base of head are and whether they need grafting, bypassing, what have you, during the same surgery as the valve. His focus was mostly on my aortic arch (slightly enlarged) and my carotids (with blockages of anywhere between 70-90%). 

He said the CT was actually better than he thought, after seeing my angiogram. Now, he thinks he will definitely not touch the carotids (or rather he will not engage the vascular surgeon for the carotids, which have deposits, but no occlusions) and he might not replace the aortic arch (yay for possibly no deep hypothermia and circulatory arrest!). He says the arch looks pretty good, and not "like porcelain". If this verifies when he opens me up, he will not redo it, he will just keep an eye on it yearly.

The new list of procedures during open heart surgery is:

- aortic valve replacement (with ON-X valve)
- ascending aorta grafting (mine is completely calcified and has a small aneurysm)
- 2 bypasses of the LAD and OMB coronary arteries
- aortic arch replacement to be assessed at the time or surgery, but no plan to replace it as of right now.

Without the last one in the picture the risk for stroke will go down, somewhat. In my case, because of my FH, and because of my atherosclerosis,  the risk of stroke remains significant.

This is what I know today ...
Oh, and also, probably the most important bit: he still wants me to do the surgery sooner (next week) rather than later (March), so surgery date set for next week on Thursday.  Preop day is February 10.

I hope this will be my next appointment, but not sure. I do want to call my cardiologist tomorrow, because I am very sore from my angiogram, something that I don't remember being last time they did this.

And there it goes, another day behind us, on this crazy journey.