By Peggy Sue McRae, Journal contributor
In my most recent article, I told you about being diagnosed with a severe case of a heart disease called aortic valve stenosis, my initial steps taken here at PeaceHealth in Friday Harbor and my first visit to the cardiology center in Bellingham. Since then I’ve been to Bellingham again for an angiogram and that is why I titled this article, “Fantastic Voyage.”
If you are around my age you may remember the 1966 sci-fi movie “Fantastic Voyage” starring Raquel Welch. In the movie a team of doctors and scientists are shrunk to a microscopic size and in their tiny ship are injected into the bloodstream of an important person to stop a blood clot before it gets to his brain. That they travel through his arteries is what made me want to rewatch this movie. The film won well-deserved Academy Awards for visual effects and production design. At one point, in their tiny ship, they even go through the heart via the aortic valve! Luckily, the doctor and crew who performed my angiogram remained full-sized as they sent a tube up the artery in my right arm to take photographs of my heart from the inside. No miniaturization was involved but it was still a fantastic voyage.
The procedure was followed by a consultation with a heart surgeon about the next steps. If you have severe aortic valve stenosis, you have three choices:
1) Do nothing. This can mean managing symptoms with medications and may be the choice of people with other very serious health conditions or who may be frail or elderly to the extent they may not have the strength to recover from surgery. Life expectancy with untreated severe aortic valve stenosis is about two years so it is not a choice to be taken lightly.
2) The next choice is transcatheter aortic valve replacement or TAVR. In this procedure, they enter your body through an artery, in the arm or groin, and do not replace the faulty valve but set a catheter inside the damaged valve so that it can function. This method is less invasive and has an easier recovery period than open-heart surgery.
3) The third choice is open-heart surgery where they replace the faulty valve with a new valve. This type of surgery has been around for a long time and they are good at it. It is however a more invasive procedure and the recovery is more challenging. To have open-heart surgery a person would ideally have a certain level of fitness to begin with in order to withstand the surgery and recover well.
I was glad to find out that I am a candidate for option #2, aortic valve replacement surgery. I have a few other tests to run through before I make that appointment. I can’t say I’m looking forward to the surgery but I am deeply grateful for modern medicine. With this surgery, I hope to improve both the quality and longevity of my life. I will revisit this subject again after my TAVR surgery or, another “Fantastic Voyage.”