Broken Heart

I know it's been a whole week since I blogged, but I have had a lot on my mind. I've debated back and forth whether to bring it to my blog or not, but now that all the important people know, I can do that.

My dad. He has a bad heart valve. He was most likely born with it and it progressed over time to what it is now, which is not good. Over the past few weeks to months he's been having shortness of breath and chest tightness and finally went to the doctor who discovered a murmur he never knew he had. We went to the cardiologist and had an echo where they discovered that his aortic valve is extremely tight. We met with the cardiologist and he's scheduled to have a cath tomorrow and we go from there. He will be having the valve replaced. My dad is hoping to wait until after the 1st of the year. I understand his desire to wait - he needs to come to grips with this in his own way (his own stubborn, pigheaded way) and it also has a lot to do with insurance, and wanting to be around for Christmas with the grandkids in full capacity, not recovering from major heart surgery. I do understand all of his reasons, and I'm keeping my mouth shut as much as it is humanly possible for me (ha), but the daughter in me wants him to have it now. Like right now. It's not a condition that will get better with time, only worse. The cardiologist indicated that waiting until the 1st of the year would be okay, but we won't know 100% until after tomorrow. I'm really glad he's allowing me to be a part of his medical decisions. If you know my dad, you know he's not really the warm, fuzzy type (wonder where I got that from...). He's also very private. So, for the most part I am simply providing him with as much emotional support as possible, while keeping my mouth shut. Who knew that was possible?

Anyway, moving on....Thanksgiving was last week. We were going to go to Tara's but at the last minute we decided to go to Dad's because of the above mentioned reason. I felt the grandkids needed to spend the holiday with him, not just for his sake, but theirs. Ever since hearing about Grandpa's heart problem he worried that they would worry too much, especially Dylan. Spending Thanksgiving with him and seeing that nothing has changed, definitely helped everyone.