Rosemary's Profile

I was diagnosed with aortic and pulmonary stenosis about 10 years ago. While at my yearly checkup in July 2015 it was found that I went from moderate to severe stenosis within a year. I had symptoms all along but I didn't connect them to the stenosis. I'm recently retired (1 year now) and I've been excessively tired and having problems breathing. I attributed this to the fact that I'm not as active as I used to be and that the heavy summer air was causing my shortness of breath. Another really annoying symptom is after I eat basically anything I'm wiped out and have a very difficult time walking. My doctor told me that it's because my heart is pumping very hard and with food to digest it's just making it harder for the heart to pump. Yikes! So now I eat very small portions, but that doesn't seem to help much. I’ve always had mitral valve issues since childhood, I had rheumatic fever when I was a toddler and have always been followed for that, it’s never really been an issue..but the docs loved listening to what they referred to as my loud systolic click. So now I’m on this journey called open heart surgery, they will be replacing the aortic and possibly the pulmonary valves and repair on the mitral valve. I’m not looking forward to the recovery, just hate to be dependent on anyone!