I was diagnosed a little less than a year ago with an ascending aneurysm of 5.4cm and the doc recommended surgery. Yeah, it kind of freaked me out but the option of dropping dead due to a dissection freaked me out worse. I stayed in shape, limited heavy lifting, walked a lot and then had the surgery.

They found two aneurysms and fixed both. I felt pretty good post surgery except for the intense itching at the incision which I know means things are healing. It is now 6 months post surgery and I am back to walking, biking, hiking at altitude (12k'+) and basically doing whatever I did before the diagnosis. So don't freak out, take all this in stride, follow doctors' orders and get to the other side of this. There is plenty of life left to live and not a lot of jello in your future!