Trip to the hospital x_____x

Today, I went to downtown Toronto to visit the General Hospital to have an echocardiogram scan done on my heart as well as a consultation with a surgeon (The one who will probably perform the surgery). Yay!

This has been an issue for the past 5 years for me. No, you need not feel any sympathy as I myself do not feel the need to do so either. =P
If one must die, it doesnt matter where and when it shall happen. But it shall.

So let me explain a little about the past.

It all started when my family doctor realized a heart murmur during my yearly checkup. I've had it for a long time but it became somewhat more apparent than before. So being the careful doctor he is, he told me to get a echocardiogram scan performed. The first result was not severe.

"The valves of the heart did not close properly leading to the backflow of blood."

I was told to get medication before my yearly dental appointments to avoid infection in the heart due to bacteria. At this point, I didn't feel anything wrong so I just kept living my life as normal.

This carried on for around 3 years.

During another visit to my family doctor, he told me to get another echocardiogram scan taken because he either forgot how loud it was before, or maybe it really was louder than the time 2 years ago. But in any case, I had another scan performed. This time around, I was told there was a hole between my left and right ventricles.

For those who don't know much about biology (I don't know much either, but I did pass high school biology with flying colours). Your heart is split into 4 compartments, left atrium, left ventricle, right atrium, and right ventricle.

The flow of blood goes from the body (ie, head, arms, leg, etc) into the right ventricle, which pumps the blood into the right atrium, the blood then is sent to the lungs to be re-oxygenated. The "renewed" blood then enters the left ventricle, then left atrium, then back out to the body through the large artery called the Aorta.

Because according to my cardiologist, the ventricles are highly pressurized therefore surgical operations would be difficult and his advice was to leave it along. He claimed it would not cause damage to my future life. That was all fine and good but he added something which lead to a billion more issues. ;_;

He mentioned that in the latest echocardiogram, the size of the hole was not determined so he wanted to know the size before making his final decision. We had an echocardiogram scan done at his clinic the following day.

At this point, I felt pretty happy knowing that I could leave the hole alone and carry on with my life. Until the echocardiogram results came in... yay... ;_;

When I met the cardiologist again after he reviewed the results of the scan, he told me that the hole was not between the ventricles but between the atriums... (How did that happen? x__x)

Now he tells me I should have a surgery to fix the rupture. He helped me book an appointment at the General Hospital in downtown Toronto.

For timeline reference, these two echocardiogram scanes took place in the process of 2 years or so because of my schooling which forces me to live at Waterloo (away from home).

But thats the history of this "problem". I just finished visiting the hospital today. I had alot of things done.
- Take a "professional" echocardiogram scan
- Talk to my future surgeon about the procedure (risk assessment, possible after effects)
- Take blood sample to test to see if I qualify to donate blood (even though its for myself)
- The reason why I am testing if I can donate blood is because the surgeon said the operation will probably require blood transfusion. The operation is an open heart operation, there are many risks to taking the operation, but not doing it will possibly cause heart and lung failure. So if I qualify to take blood samples and reserve them for the operation, I will be able to use my own blood for the transfusion instead of other people's. The pro to that is I will not need to worry about the viruses of blood transfusion (HIV, etc).
- Take X-ray of my heart.
- Plan out the time frame of the procedure, the surgeon plans to have the operation done early June, though I think it'll be nearly mid or end of June though.

I will probably update the blog with future information about my heart problems. It is my blog afterall =O

Might as well talk about something more related to me than just anime and games.