The Heart of the Matter

            Some of you may know this already, for others this may be new information.  I have a genetic heart defect that needs monitoring.  I was being monitored regularly until around the time of the pandemic, and then I was lost/forgotten about.  Thanks to my family physician, I have been accepted as a patient with the Mazankowski Aortic Institute again.  The mechanism is I have a bicuspid aortic valve instead of a tricuspid.  Two of the leaflets fuse and are more prone to wear and tear.

          A couple of months ago getting an ECG, there was some troubling readings. Elevated Q waves that can be indicative of scarring on the heart.  Thankfully it isn’t that. Although my echocardiogram does show moderate to severe regurgitation.  So when a normal heart has a sound of lub dub, mine goes lub-swish-dub.  Also there is some thickening of the root, which is where the regurgitation happens. Think of the artery as a pipe and the root as the coupling that connects it.  The coupling is too big for the pipe and so there is regurgitation here.

          I don’t let it deter me though. Most of you probably wouldn’t have noticed anything was off, had I not already told you.  I still push myself hard, and that sometimes gets me in trouble.  If you see me go pale as a ghost and on the ground for a while, it means I’ve pushed myself past the edge.  From what I’ve noticed the thing that gets me the most is going from a lower body focused training to upper body.  The first time that happened my personal trainer was having me do weighted back squats straight into pull-ups.  The second time was doing a bunch of kicks on the heavy bags, followed by punch combinations.  My guess is my heart struggles with regulating my blood pressure from having a lot of blood flow going to my lower limbs, then telling it to go back up.  So my BP tanks and I go pale, and well, to the floor where gravity has less of an impact on blood flow.

           Another echocardiogram is scheduled for August, and at this point it’s just a waiting game.  Monitoring it until it becomes more of an issue.  Doesn’t stop me from living my life though.  I have become more cognizant of how I exercise, how I fuel my body, what I’m fuelling it with, reducing stress, getting enough sleep, prioritizing my mental health, etc..  I recognize I’m lucky that I got to find out this information early.  Many don’t until it has already become an issue.  This way I can take steps to mitigate more disastrous outcomes.