Kathryn's Cardiology Story

We have lived here for many, many years. When we moved on the street, we said it looked like a nice street to grow old on.

We just celebrated our sixty first wedding anniversary. We've done a couple of international trips, which we've enjoyed. We've backpacked many times in the Smoky Mountains, so we like to be out.

We were in the Baptist system and we'd already talked about we're getting older, we'd like to get everybody that we see professionally into La Grange. I was diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse in two thousand and four as mild.

Mitral valve is a valve in the heart on the left side of the heart that sort of controls blood flow between the upper and lower chamber. When your mitral valve doesn't work well, there's several things that could be wrong with it, but the two most common things are it's either stenotic, so it won't open well, or it's regurgitant, meaning it doesn't close well. Kathryn's issue was that hers did not close well.

I would say in Greece I blamed it on the heat but as I look back now I think it was beginning its downward spiral.

We were following her mitral valve with something called echocardiography.

An echocardiogram is an ultrasound of the heart. It's a noninvasive way to evaluate the heart, the chamber sizes, the valves, the function of the heart. Her echocardiogram showed progressive insufficiency or regurgitation of the mitral valve, which over time then can cause the heart not to function the way it should.

When it got to the point where she did not feel well and the echocardiograms showed fairly significant pathology of the mitral valve, then we had a discussion about what the next step was, which was surgery.

When she saw that echo, she said, Okay, it's time to move. I was thinking let's do it. I had a repair.

Kathryn was just she's always been so sweet. As a PA with a cardiology group we worked as a team with the physicians. We got her into cardiac rehab so now she is able to do her normal stuff without any issues.

I had twenty four sessions in cardiac rehab, and it was wonderful. The first time I didn't go back after I had graduated was like, you mean I don't get to see them?

Because they were so encouraging and so fun.

I had been a regular walker, then I got a fallen arch.

I was going, oh no!

And the podiatrists said instead of ten thousand steps a day, said, Cut yourself back to eight thousand.

Since surgery, I've been able to get back to walking, so I walk six days a week and give myself Sunday off. I give a shout out to the cardiac surgery folks and then to Dr. McFarland's office and to the cardiac rehab people. They were great.

Our patients come first. They're our priority. That's what we strive to really do our best work is to take the very best care we can of the patients that we have. Don't hesitate going to your doctor, and then don't hesitate following through.

Kathryn's story is a good demonstration of somebody who wants to take good care of themselves, and she really followed what we asked her to do.

And always the last question is, what's your goals? And I just told him the same thing every time. I had places to go and things to do.