My name is Nancy. I'm 53 years. Very active. Have 3 grown children, 31, 27, 18. A year ago January I noticed that every morning I was waking up with a very slight wheezing in my chest. I went to my Doctor for a complete physical. Nothing unusual. 3 months later, I asked if something further could be done to check on the wheezing. A chest x-ray was done and revealed scar tissue, (was not considered a big deal). 3 months after that I asked if there was a specialist I could go to. My Doctor then ordered a CT scan.
When I went to get my CT scan done, the Radiologist had talked my Doctor out of, saying that it would be just as effective to just get another chest x-ray done with different angles. The 2nd chest x-ray revealed something that needed to be checked out further. So the Doctor sent me back for the CT scan. The CT scan revealed 2 ascending aortic aneurysms. The larger being 5.3 cm.
My Doctor highly recommended a Cardiac Surgeon here in Santa Rosa, Ca. His advice was wait for it to grow to 6.1 cm, we'll check the size out with a CT scan once a year. I "sat" with that opinion for almost 4 months. I decided to go to another G.P. Doctor that does acupuncture and although she is a M.D. she has an Eastern philosophy to care and treatment. When I told her that I was advised to wait for the aneurysm to grow, she couldn't believe it. She told me to go to an University Medical Center.
The surgeon there said that the risk factor of living with the aneurysm far outweighs the risk factor of the graft that he is able to do. The "David Procedure", is only done in the 2 University Medical Centers in our area.
Now that I have 2 exact opposite opinions I will be going for a 3rd opinion. If anyone has any experience with this kind of situation or just wants to contact me, please do.