Update from new echo and input needed

I'm terribly, terribly for what you've been made to endure. If I were you, I'd be talking to a lawyer. You're right about our health care system. (I'm a retired professor and I'll say our educational system is messed up too. People who should know better and do better for some reason don't.) No one should have to go through what you and your sweet husband did. You did everything you could and more. It wasn't you who failed; it was the very people you relied on to help you. This makes me very angry. You have my most sincere condolences.

Yes, if they aren’t listening to you, I would move on to another cardiologist.its frustrating dealing with Drs who don’t have a valid reason to wait. I feel like saying, “wait for what?” I mean there’s no benefit to waiting in my honest opinion because we are only going to get older, weigh more, etc. it’s harder on our bodies to “wait” and have surgery when we are older. The bottom line is, I have an aneurysm. It needs to be fixed. Now. I don’t see ANY benefit to waiting. It needs to be replaced, it’s not going away, it’s only going to get worse and I’m going to be older and less of an optimal candidate for heart surgery. Of course this is only my opinion. But fight the fight for your heart and a better outcome than my husband had. Best of Luck and I hope you find a cardiologist that will listen. If you don’t find that cardiologist, find a cardiac surgeon that does these grafts and repairs. Likely the surgeon will help you most. Take your CD of your echo/cT/MRI to the surgeon. If this can save even one life it’s worth it!

I think you should push harder or find another cardiologist. I fought for my husband who had an aortic aneurysm in the aortic root of 5.0 per echo and up to 5.5 per CT scan. He also had mild-mod regurgitation of his mitral valve and mod-severe regurgitation of his aortic valve. These tests were done on 7/24/24. I am an RN and when he got his results from the patient portal, I started blowing up the Drs office phone. They refused to see him until his scheduled appt on 8/23/24. I screamed and hollered and no one listened. Sent messages to Dr through patient portal. Nothing. No response from anyone until I requested his records to go to Houston Methodist Debakey Vascular Unit. Then the “valve clinic RN” called us and said “yes I see how many times you called. Yes I see how long it’s been. I will give your message to the Dr.” I told her right then that my husbands father had died from this exact same thing at 67 yo. My husband was 66 yo. I told her that I was living with a ticking time bomb and that he could blow his aorta at any moment and he needed to be seen NOW. She said, “we will let the Dr make that decision. Keep your appt for 8/23/24. If the Dr thinks it’s an emergency then he will tell us to get him in sooner”. That discussion was on 8/5/24. No phone call has ever been received to discuss his test results. My husband collapsed and died in our home at 8:00 on 8/10/24. I am extremely angry right now at our health system. It is BROKEN. I was the best patient advocate that I could have been for my husband and no one listened to me. I believe the cardiologist clinic office killed my husband by not doing the right thing. This was preventable and should have been handled differently. In hindsight, I should have taken my sweet husband to the ER and told them he was having chest pain. Be an advocate for yourself because the Drs and nurses where we went couldn’t care less about my husbands life. I was so strong with the office and nurses that my husband even told me, “don’t be so pushy. If the Dr thinks I need to be seen sooner, he will get me in.” He put so much faith in his Dr. I didn’t even cancel
his appt for 8/23/24. I thought they might call to check on him since his tests results were so critical. NOPE. Not a call from anyone except the autopsy that I had done on him. He dissected his aorta from his aortic root to his renal arteries. I pray he didn’t feel the pain from this.
I don’t know where you are receiving your healthcare but get to a large hospital and go to the ER with chest pain and tell them that you have an aortic aneurysm on last scan. Hopefully they will save your life.