(no subject)
So for those of you who don't know, which is most of you, my mom is having open heart surgery on Friday some time. As it turns out, the majority of her health problems stem from a malformed Aortic valve, which may or may not have been formed right from birth. The valve has since calcified, I guess the technical term is "Aortic Stenosis". It's pretty serious, and basically what it means is that her heart isn't able to pump out enough oxygen rich blood for her body to function. Over the years as her valve has calcified she's gotten progressively more sensitive because the little blood that was passing through was getting kinda ripped up by the calcification which made her anemic and also the lack of flow meant that any pollutants were in WAY too much concentration compared to the oxygen her body would need to dilute them. Hopefully the valve replacement will enable her to be more active and healthier than she's been in many many years, if not her whole life, because her heart will be functioning right. She's getting a pig valve put in there in place of the other one because the body doesn't react to it the way it does to a metal one because it's organic tissue. Apparently if you have a metal one you have to take a blood thinner for the rest of your life because the metal attracts blood clots. Bein' as they're not absolutely sure the anemia is caused by the calcification and you REALLY don't want blood thinner if you're anemic, she's not gonna go with that. The pig valve is supposed to last about 10 years, whereas the metal ones are more like 20 years, but given her age, they recommended she go with the pig because of the lesser complications. So Sarah and I went out to hang out with her yesterday and brought her car back with us so we can drive straight to the hospital on Friday.
In much happier news, we got a cat. We haven't named her yet, but she's the friendliest cutest cat. She walked up to our back door and started meowing. After a few days of that we got a litter pan and some cat food and we took her in. She meows a lot at night still because she wants to be outside, but she's calming down.
In much happier news, we got a cat. We haven't named her yet, but she's the friendliest cutest cat. She walked up to our back door and started meowing. After a few days of that we got a litter pan and some cat food and we took her in. She meows a lot at night still because she wants to be outside, but she's calming down.