Medical update

This may be of interest to many of you.  I returned to meet my new surgeon at UofM Hospital yesterday.  I printed out three pages of a Doctor's blog post that discussed the possible benefits of using vitamin K2.  My new guy wasn't interested in it at all.  I gave it to him to read and he took it.  His take is that for many years people have been coming up with ways to get rid of the calcification and none of them have worked.  Even if we could get the calcium out the valve would not be like a valve that had not been calcified.  The damage would not heal.  He may be right but I am sticking with the vitamin and am also going to follow at least some of the recommendations from Dr. Ornish's program.  It can't hurt and before the operation I'll have another echo cardiogram that will show any change from February of this year. At that point I could wait another six months or so to see what happens.  There have been only 7 instances of this particular operation performed at UofM hospital in the last two years and Dr. Haft has performed all of them.  The two hospitals where quite a few of these are performed are in Indianapolis and Baltimore.  We may go to one of them even though I don't feel badly about being number 8 in Ann Arbor.  The chance of survival is about 93%. 

I found the video of Dr. Ornish on line today and if you have the interest take a look.  He has done so much work on this in a scientific way, you'd think it would get more recognition.  He's not a great lecturer and the program isn't presented in a commercial way.  If you have any health concerns it is definitely worth learning about.

I do feel better, even with my half-measures for the last three weeks.  We could all meet here for yoga and emotional support.  Wear loose fitting clothes and bring-your-own-mat.


We need to get it in gear for wedding preparations starting tomorrow.  Best wishes to all.