From the Shuford House

Bernard saw Dr. Vickery (general practitioner) this week as a follow up for his initial visit three weeks ago (has it only been three weeks????). The good news is that all of his blood work is completely normal, and they tested, I think for every disease known to man, and some they just suspected of being diseases. Seriously, all of his counts were normal so that ruled out the pesky (and really scary) stuff like leukemia, cancer, etc. etc. There is still some question about what is causing the funky vision issues and the tingling hands, etc., so Dr. Vickery has ordered an MRI for Monday (4/1) to rule out MS. :/ Of course, since Bernard has been working in and around metal since he was a teenager, he could not guarantee that there was no metal in his eyes, so he has to have x-rays first. The good thing is that Jenny (my brother's wife) will be one of the techs doing the MRI.

Today, Friday 3/30, Bernard went to the hospital for his TEE. They put him to sleep (gotta chase a rabbit here -- as he was waking up, the dr. was in talking to me. Bernard starts asking logical questions about what is next, etc. We also made a couple of jokes between the three of us, etc. On the way home, Bernard looks at me as serious as a [dare I say] heart attack and says, "So, what exactly did the dr. say? He didn't remember any of it!).

Results -- The hole in his heart is BIG. It is like 37-38 mm up and down and 30-33 mm across. Conversions --- 3.7/3.8 cm or 3.0/3.3 cm OR about and inch and a half and a inch and quarter. You could run a standard garden hose through this puppy. Dr. Trichon (who looked like he might be all of 17) said that he has never seen a defect that big in someone that showed symptoms as late as Bernard did. He said that usually by the late teens/early twenties, the patient would be showing them. He was amazed at how long Bernard had been going, and how much he works and that the symptoms weren't any worse than they were. (He thought that Bernard being able to work 50+ hours a week was beyond understanding). However, it is serious. It simply can't go uncorrected any longer without some serious, non-fun, irrepairable consequences.

Soooooooooo, Bernard is still scheduled to have a heart cath on April 10th. We will meet with the surgeons some time next week, but Dr. Trichon felt they would go ahead and admit him on the tenth and do surgery on the 11th. The hole is simply too large to even consider correcting with a cath, so it looks like it will be some form of heart surgery. We will know if it is the full, cut ya open, separate the sternum job or a "portal" (small incision) surgery after we talk to them. The Dr. also said that Bernard would immediately feel a lot better, and that he will probably be surprised at how fatigued and nasty he has felt (kinda one of those things where you feel bad for so long it starts to feel normal). That makes sense to me. That hole is letting a lot of blood go to the wrong places!

Bernard is very calm about all of this and seems relieved, even, to know that something can be done about it and we are on our way to doing that. None of this is surprising God, or even inconveniencing Him, so we are trusting Him to take us through this. God is good -- all the time!

Thank you all for taking the time to remember us and praying for us. If God can be glorified in this AT ALL, so be it. It is His plan, we just got chosen to be the players, this time.

In Him,
Karma