Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Never Knew About ASD

We got married in April 1983 in Iași Romania while both students, i was in the 2nd II year at Machine Tools, Mechanics and she was in the IV year at Economics. At an X-ray screening before marriage they found her with heart murmur, "congenital enlargement of the heart" and "congenital dilation of the pulmonary artery" all "compensated" that means there was no heart failure.

I remember in the summer before that we both went to Rarău starting from Câmpulung, a round trip of about 30 km, on two different trails for each way, and 1000 meters altitude difference and she had no problem. However she had a slight different color of nails.

At Iași they put her at St.Spiridon university hospital for about a week for what i think now it was teaching material for students, because back then listening was the main diagnostic tool. They told us she should not have children.

Never had much of a significant medical history until 2004 when i could not bear anymore my stomach pain and went to Romania. There i found out she got diagnosed with cancer for what i thought it was hemorrhoids and sciatica. In the same period i had very painful hemorrhoids too, after i got to Romania that last about 2 weeks. Then she went to the doctor and they diagnosed here with colon cancer, the size of a walnut. She went through surgery chemo and radiation therapy later that year. Chemo got her an allergy to metals (iodine, nickel) and radiation therapy killed by mistake her ovaries and other adjacent organs. I talked years after with the radiologist and he confirmed it was a mistake. When i went to Romania in spring i helped her write an application for her American citizenship that was granted after the surgery.

In 2010 she finished a medical assistant 9 months course at Concorde College in Portland graduating with A. Course was paid by GE after she got laid off from there after many years. She got an internship in some endoscopy clinic but i did not agree because i though we were living in filth and she might contaminate the patient. At the Eagle Crest Lake Oswego Apt.

During that time but even before i listened to her heart and can confirm she had a murmur, but not terrible, like when compared to what i heard on some pages, both as intensity and oddity.

For years she had not slept well and went to work after only several hours of sleep and always worked overtime.

Last December she finally got hired permanently at Eaton, and got insurance which she didn't have for several years.

Then this spring she went for a checkup and she mentioned to her doctor about her heart condition and also about a report from her last follow up whole body CT scan (it was the last of 7 at 6 months interval and the only low dose). There and only there it was mentioned something about pulmonary hypertension, a complication, together with enlargement of the pulmonary artery and increased size heart of ASD or Atrial Secundum Defect, a birth defect.

Nobody told her about this until then.

So she went through Doppler echo where they measured the hole in hear heart to 1.8 cm which gave us hope she would be eligibile for non-surgical treatment. However the subsequent MRI showed 3.2 cm hole size, Qp/Qs ratio 3.1, cardiac output 1.9 l/m pulmonary tension 70 mm and no rim on one side which means open heart surgery.

Tomorrow she is scheduled for catheter angiography, but the doctor told her "they will fix anything that is fixable" and i got worried about her allergy, since if they found a narrowed artery and wanted to put a stent that may contain nickel, they should have tested her first. In her chart it says is she is allergic only to iodine so at her last blood test they did no used iodine yet she got again the rash. They also told her to have her overnight bag with her "just in case".

The rash is barely visible after her last blood work a few days ago. Only the assistant who draw her blood had difficulties finding the vein and some of her veins turned blue and the rash is hard to spot.

To my opinion she does not have any symptoms except a slight obesity and mild hypertension for which she takes medicine and is under control and being out of shape for not taking the walks recently and sitting too much though a couple of months ago they changed her work to something more physically demanding. We have two oximeters and her blood oxygen was always normal.

So today she talked to the doctor and he put her on prednisone and also said tomorrow there will be nothing but a diagnose.
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