The News

Brendan always wanted kids. We never could agree on how many... he said 3-4, I said ONE, maybe 2... but he was firm on the fact that he wanted children.

So, we have this diagnosis of Endocarditis... and we got that all taken care of. But the fact remained that I had this deformed, floppy mitral valve, who was still causing all these problems. What do we do?! Well, we got our answer... OPEN HEART SURGERY. wow. That news hits you like a ton of bricks. Because I had been in the hospital so long, previously, I had NO PTO left at work. Plus we had tons of medical bills piling up... and now this?! Geez.

According to my cardiologist, Dr. Sutthiwan, who is WONDERFUL... we had 2 options a) a tissue valve, which would mean surgery to replace it over and over or b) a mechanical valve, which would mean (hopefully) never having to replace it again. Well we want choice B, right?

Here is what having a mechanical valve means... because there would be a foreign object in my body (and because we learned with my picc line that my body forms blood clots VERY quickly) I would have to be on Coumadin for the rest of my life. I mean, you really DON'T want a clot forming on your heart. But this means... no children, ever. If I were to get pregnant, while on Coumadin, the consequences could be deadly. Ouch. What do we do? We JUST got married! We JUST started our new life together... and now you're telling me we can't have kids?!

Let me tell you that this caused A LOT of grief for us. We argued for days over this... I mean, I was going to have to have my chest cracked open, and someone fiddle around with my HEART. The last thing I cared about was whether or not we could have kids... but Brendan was in agony over not having kids... his family was in agony over the thought of never having Brendan's grandchildren... I felt out numbered and unimportant. It was a terrible time for us.

So we went and met with the surgeon, and I had finally caved and told Brendan I wold do the tissue valve, so we could have at least one child. Well Dr. Paone had different plans. He said with someone my age, he wouldn't even consider a tissue replacement. That got Brendan's attention, and he agreed, that's what was best for me. Dr. Paone also said, with the severity of my condition, we needed to get in there right away, and not wait. So I didn't have a lot of time to be scared, or even nervous... it was happening, and it was happening NOW.