Patient Story of Pat Bluemel

My Story

About Me (In My Own Words)

I was diagnosed with a heart murmur at 31, that would be 11 years ago. Never found during sports, or anything growing up, also 'really hard to hear it' apparently unless you are a cardiologist. Always a little hard on my body as I lived my 20s really fast and fun - I decided to get a heart work up after my birth father had a heart attack and stroke. At the time I was diagnosed with BAV and sent on my merry way. A few years later while performing a stress test the nurse doing the ultra sound after the treadmill left the room promptly and came back with another nurse, I knew something was up, but kind of just wrote it off to her and needing training. In the car on the way home I received a call instructing me to come back to get a CT, so I turned around and checked into imaging where they handed me my paperwork (me still not really knowing what was going on) and right there in what seems like type 34 font the CT orders said DIALATED ASCENDING AORTA. As I waited for the scan, I did what most would do and went to our trusty yet not trusty friend WebMD...Not such a good idea, but I am a researcher. After all that settled, I learned I was measuring 4.7 via CT, and would at some point need a surgery. A decision to watch and wait was made and over the years we've watched my friend the aneurysm (I call her Anny), grow nominally here and there, but nothing with alarm. Shortly before Christmas of '14 my medical team decided it's time, as we are in the 5.5 range (on average) depending on the modality (CT, Ultrasound and MRA - all measure a smidge differently, who knew)? We are banking on aortic valve repair via the David Procedure, and falling back to Bovine as a back up and then Mechanical after that.

Update - Summer 2020
I've commented here and there this spring, but it's almost time for my grand reopening debut. My St. Jude's Trifecta AV has officially failed and I think I've pretty much settled on an OnX mechanical this go round. I've got the date, just not ready to put it on the board as it makes it too real:-).