I wasn’t always the best patient, but since passing out in my house in 2020, I have a yearly date with my cardiologist around heart month.

For a little background: when I was around 6 weeks old, I was diagnosed with a ventricular septal defect (VSD). I didn’t have surgery for it until I was 12 years old for who only knows what reasons. Afterwards, I’d see a cardiologist randomly, once every few years or so. Everything was fine. The whole was (mostly) patched. No big deal.

Getting ready for work on January 16th, 2020 I felt like someone was beating on the inside of my chest and passed out in my hallway. Luckily, the hubs caught me. Also luckily, I worked on a congenital cardiac unit and as soon as I went back to work, they set me up with probably the greatest cardiologist of all time. Seriously, if this man retires before I die I have no idea what I’m going to do.

It turns out, to catch funky electrical happenings, maybe you should wear the monitor for longer than a day. Maybe you should be on beta blockers for those electrical issues. Also yeah, probably aspirin. Here’s some amoxicillin for before the dentist. Oh, also, your aortic root is dilated.

What? What does that mean?

Well, for now, not much. We’ll keep an eye on it. Measure it via the yearly echo. Beta blockers will help. At least the ones that don’t make you poop all the time will.

4 years later and it’s gotten a little larger, but still not at the “call the surgeon for a consult” size. But now I’m at the “shouldn’t really lift weights” size. Which is oodles of fun, as I have a 20 year old 40lb dog who cannot walk up stairs and needs to be carried like the perfect little old man he is. Is he too much weight? I’m not sure. I didn’t think to ask at the time. Luckily for me, and unfortunately for my cardiac team, I can ask via MyChart and impatiently wait for a response.

So this year for heart month, I’ll be getting a repeat MRI. Time to call the dentist to reschedule my braces appointment…