Sher's Journal

Hi, my name is Sher and I discovered Adam's amazing site last year and started to watch the presentations he arranges which have been truly educational and amazing and learning from others to determine my next steps. Today I am taking my first step in moving forward with trying to determine what I should do about Ascending Aortic Aneurysm surgery. This is the start of my journal. I hope I don't bore you but thought I would give you more context about me. I am a mom to one terrific young man and married for 44 years. I turned 66 years old March 2024. If you read my valve story, I haven't made a decision since the surgeon wanted to do elective surgery within 3 months of me seeing him in June 2023.

A lot happened at the time I met the surgeon. My Dad was admitted into the hospital the first of June and I was there everyday taking care of him and going back and forth to the hospital for my Dad and making sure my Mom was okay so was extremely busy. My Dad passed away the evening of June 26th. My Mom hadn't been tracking quite right for a week and I thought it was stress over my Dad. The morning of June 26th I sent my Mom by ambulance to the hospital. I knew my Dad would likely not be alive long so I was running up and down from emergency where Mom was and back up to where Dad was. Mom was admitted to the same floor where Dad was after he passed. I was continuously at the hospital then taking care of my Mom. Mom passed away on July 10, 2023, 14 days after Dad.

I had agreed to a Cardiac CT Scan which took place in July 2023 but just put my heart issues completely on hold with planning Celebrations of Life for my parents for September and all of the hard things like cleaning out their home and setting up estate stuff and their final graveside service. A lot of stuff.

A little bit about me: I had started a health improvement journey in 2015 just before I broke my ankle, which was severe. I had 2 surgeries on my ankle in 2015. I met my coach in 2015 to improve my nutrition, reduce stress and help me learn how to walk again. He started me slowly on resistance training with the emphasis on strengthening the ankle and learn how to walk again. But he was strengthening all areas mind, sleep, stress, eating and physical strength. In March of 2016 I found out I had Breast Cancer and that started a whole new crazy time. Surgery, radiation and now physically trying to strengthen more. My immune system was extremely low so I felt like I was trying to climb out of a very deep hole and my ankle wasn't helping me much. 2016 was pretty much a struggle year but I had a great coach and he worked with me all the way. Any heart issues I had was pretty much not on my radar screen especially since nothing was alarming and me being monitored by my physician and cardiac doctors.

I really increased my resistance training after I retired in 2019. COVID hit in 2020 and since I had a home gym continued to work out and people told me that I should tell more people about my story. I met with the with the head of the NPAA (Natural Physique Athletes Association) and they wanted me to do transformation so that I could show others that you can overcome issues and improve your health. In 2022 did my first competition in the transformation division and then in 2023 bikini and fitness. I tell you this because its important to know that I feel the best I've ever felt, in the best shape of my life, eat nutritionally (still love my chocolate covered jujubes though) and I lift heavy weights and do body weight workouts and I walk alot. I am asymptomatic for heart problems and have great blood pressure and weight is good. But, I am told there is a 2% mortality with surgery versus 7-12% risk of dissection now. I am struggling with the numbers. My Mom was 93years old when she passed. She had congestive heart failure and AFIB. She died of an embolic stroke. She had a Bicuspid Aortic Valve too.

So sorry for the long start to my journal but now you know more about me. I am now thinking about getting second opinions. My coach wants to see if other surgeons will come back with the same prognosis of doing surgery now versus later and believes I would have a great recovery because of my fitness level. Me, I am worried about complications, post strokes, dementia (my Dad), medications (I am medication free and want to stay that way) and ability to travel and compete in the future. I worked for 40 years and was taking care of my parents while I worked and fully after my retirement in 2019. Now I just want to have fun but maybe have to just wait until after surgery.

Are there others that were asymptomatic prior to having surgery? My Ascending Aorta is now 48mm. Did others get second opinions? How did you go about doing that? I am going to reach out to Adam for help on this as there are some doctors that I really resonated with from some of the presentations. How long did it take to getting back to normal life after surgery? Have others gone back to rigorous exercise post surgery? How about medication free? I so appreciate any helpful suggestions as I navigate through this and appreciate all of you! You are heart warriors!