No. My December scan showed me holding steady at 5 cm. My surgeon is kind of old-school. He still goes by the 5.5 cm. It may be in part that my aortic aneurysm genetic panel came back without connective tissue disorder variants they commonly look for. I also quit smoking years ago and am female and 54 years old. I think he thinks that I'm an unlikely candidate for dissection or rupture.

I hope he's right. I would prefer to wait until the FDA approves new stent technology for this area of the aorta. They are close. The procedure has been done for years on high risk patients who would not survive open-heart surgery with the bypass. Results have not been great, but these have been the highest risk patients.

I'm trying to get my autoimmune disease officially diagnosed. It looks like Behcet's. I have the dilated pulmonary artery going on, too. Rheumatology (at Brigham & Women's and Beth Israel) has been a nightmare to deal with, though.