Hi pcathy, thank you for responding here. We appreciate your warning to watch for signs of fluid retention like shortness of breath (SOB) and/or edema. He’s actually been battling with SOB for over 15 years yet cardiologists always say his heart is fine so they refer him to pulmonologists who say his lungs are fine until 3 years ago when a pulmonologist from Univ of Mich diagnosed him with asbestosis in his left lung and said it’s only operating at 50%. Apparently he didn’t feel anything could be done to remedy this and only told my dad he likely acquired it from exposure to asbestos in industrial environments he worked in for decades as an industrial electrician. From things I’ve read it can take 30+ years before you show symptoms of lung damage from inhaling airborne asbestos particles! I find it fascinating how much the heart and lung work together because in my dad’s case, things really got bad this past fall when he couldn’t breathe one day and his calves had become very swollen (from fluids backing up/poor circulation) so him & mom went to ER where they discovered his right coronary artery was 90% blocked so they placed a stint during angioplasty/groin entry catheter procedure. He could immediately breathe better than he had for years, but just 4 days later he was back to square one when his SOB returned. A couple weeks later a CT scan revealed a large pericardial effusion had developed (fluid in sac surrounding his heart) which contributed to restricting his heart from fully expanding which limited its ability to fully pump blood throughout his body. Since it’s risky to attempt draining these fluids from the sac, they monitored the size of this effusion via monthly echocardiograms which showed it gradually got smaller each month, I.e., severe to moderate then finally small 🙌 This allowed him to be cleared to travel south to the Sunshine state where he looked forward to doing (sooner than later) since we’d learned that Tampa General Hospital has a well respected cardiology clinic (in top 50 out of thousands throughout the U.S.) and we were able to get him scheduled for an initial appointment about a month before departing Michigan. Shortly after his initial visit with a cardiologist in mid Feb, she ordered a complete echocardiogram (versus a limited echo) which revealed a low flow/low gradient severe stenosis of his aortic valve which had narrowed down to a very small 0.7 cm2 opening rather than the normal 3-5 cm2 opening of a normal aortic valve. This immediately prompted sitting down with a cardiac interventionalist doc who routinely performs minimally invasive TAVR procedures (via groin catheter) which was done a few weeks back on April 2nd. This new valve instantly allows his left ventricle to fully pump fresh oxygenated blood throughout his body, however his right ventricle remains enlarged and isn’t pumping deoxygenated blood to the lungs very (dysfunctional) so there’s a 50/50 chance the right ventricle will improve over time OR it may not if the cause of this right ventricle dysfunction is somehow linked to his asbestos condition in his left lung. While recovering at Tampa General Hospital after his TAVR procedure, my mom and I asked if a pulmonologist could stop in to have a look at my dad and a couple of them came in together (after examining some post procedural digital imagin like X-rays, echocardiogram, etc.) and told him they agreed with the asbestosis diagnosis from 3 years ago and said they were concerned about fluid in his right (good lung) so they decided to keep him one additional night (3 nights total) so he continues on diuretics (Bumex water pill) and now also nebulizing sodium chloride 2-3x/daily and looking forward to adding the OPEP treatments soon once the Aerobika (with manometer) arrives at Tampa Specialty Pharmacy near where my folks reside in St Pete during cold months. This is likely far more than you cared to hear, but I think it’s beneficial to share as much info as possible since there may be others here who might be able to relate to some of this and possibly be helpful somehow. Thank you again for responding and your concern for my dad to keep an eye out for certain symptoms. Hoping you a glorious day! Cheers, Scott