Mehrad's Profile

I'm scheduled to do a Ross Procedure in November 2020. Feeling nervous about it at the moment. In 2015, I went in for a routine checkup with a cousin who was out of shape; I joined him in the spirit of solidarity as he was concerned with his heart given family history, so to put him at ease I also scheduled an appointment after his saying I would do a checkup as well with a cardiologist. I was probably the fittest I had been in my life at the time, spinning and working out on the daily, I was expecting to walk out with just a confirmation that everything is great. Then as the cardiologist was listening to my chest, he said, "has anyone ever told you anything?", I replied, "no, why?". He said he will do an echo to confirm what he thinks it is, we do the echo then he sits me down and I had one of those moments like in the movies, whereafter he said there will be the need for replacement through open-heart surgery it all goes to mumbling and the last thing I heard was the sternotomy aspect, everything else he said was a blur. The doctor was explaining and drawing out something on paper to tell me what a bicuspid aortic valve and regurgitation are, and I was thinking what is going on... how could I have a congenital issue and no one had noticed in the past. That brings us to now, five years later after monitoring it twice a year, the time has come to act on it. Although I don't seem to be experiencing too many symptoms (shortness of breath), the regurgitation is increasing and my heart is starting to grow, in order to avoid future heart pump damage we are going ahead with the Ross Procedure.