March 19th, 2011...Garrett and I ran the Get Lucky 1/2 marathon and it was a great run! That night Garrett passed out and that’s where his heart journey began. After pokes and tests we find out he had a prolapsed mitral valve. (The mitral valve is found between your left atrium and left ventricle of the heart. It opens/closes allowing oxygenated blood to flow from the left atrium to the left ventricle and then out to your body. When it prolapses the blood leaks back into the left atrium so you’re not efficiently pumping blood out to the rest of your body.) He went through a successful Robotic Mitral Valve repair on April 18th, 2011. Fast forward to now, he was on a 3 year cycle for follow up as everything had been doing great. He went in for his routine echocardiogram (ultrasound of the heart) and they found reoccurring prolapse and regurgitation (blood leaking back into the atrium). He then went through a few additional test and was told to make an appointment with a heart surgeon for possible mitral valve repair or replacement. He saw a local heart surgeon in Austin, TX who recommended open heart mitral valve replacement. He started researching second opinions and found a surgeon at Mayo - Rochester who specializes in minimally invasive (if meets criteria) mitral valve re-repairs. He sent all his records over and Dr. Crestanello agreed to do his surgery. He is scheduled for surgery on Thursday July 11th but we won’t know if it’ll be full open heart or minimally invasive until after a full day of tests and consultation on Wednesday July 10th. We are optimistic that he’ll meet criteria for minimally invasive as he is only 40 and otherwise in good health. Send positive healing vibes and prayers his way!
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