Nicole's Profile

I was 21 when a doctor doing a routine exam asked me if I knew I had a heart murmur. I was in college in a different state, so my mom set me up an appointment with a cardiologist in my home city. I traveled home for the appointments and learned that I was born with a bicuspid aortic valve. It had some mild regurgitation but it was otherwise not causing any problems. For years, I dutifully went to my cardiologist for my appointments and annual echocardiogram. Nothing changed for over 20 years until I was about 45 years old when the cardiologist asked me to follow the echo with a CT scan to re-measure the ascending aorta. It was measuring close to 4.1cm. The CT confirmed 4.1cm and the regurgitation was now considered moderate. I then learned what it meant to have a dilation of the ascending aorta, and that we had to watch it to determine if heart surgery may be in my future. That never seemed a real possibility to me in all the years of going to the cardiologist. So over the past few years, the echos were mostly consistent until this year. I’m 51 years old, and the dilation of my ascending aorta is measuring at 4.5cm and after more tests to confirm, my aortic regurgitation is now considered severe. The cardiologist told me that I should now have surgery. It was the first time I felt like a patient. Before I always felt like it was a partnership to confirm all was well until the next year. Now my journey begins, and I’m so happy to have found this forum for answers, support, and a sense of belonging and commitment to a community I didn’t know existed, but now I sense is going to help get me through the fear, anxiety, and acceptance that I am going to have open heart surgery.