More on my quest for aortic valve replacement

There is good news and bad news - and maybe good news.

Last Thursday I got the last test to get submitted for the clinical trial (Medtonics is trying to get approval to do trans arterial valve replacement on low risk patients), a CT scan of my arteries and to measure the size of my valve. The cardiothoracic surgeon called Monday. My arteries are great for getting the TAVR so that part of the test went just as we hoped. But the radiologist reading the CT saw a mass on one kidney. The surgeon referred me to a urologist.

I saw the urologist this morning. Although we had gotten a CD with the images from the CT scan, he was not able to load them. But from the written report he was of the opinion that I need to have that kidney removed. The mass is large enough that if it is cancer, they don't want to take any chance of leaving any cells. We tried to get another copy of the CD, no go, but we went back to the urologist's office this afternoon to talk more. He'd been - after a lot of effort - able to open the images and look at them.

In addition to the kidney I have an inguinal hernia. I knew about it and had planned to have that repaired once everything else was done. The urologist says that since the kidney surgery would go through that area of the abdomen, the hernia could be fixed at the same time. He does not want to do that extensive surgery until my aortic valve is replaced. On the good side he does not want me to get open heart surgery - the stress of that kind of surgery and the time involved in healing would delay the kidney surgery too long in his opinion.

The plan now is to get me reclassified to an intermediate risk for open heart surgery - that makes me eligible for TAVR without having to be in the trial. As soon as possible after that (weeks rather than months) I'd get the abdominal surgery.

I actually feel very lucky - if I had not been going through all these tests, that mass on my kidney would not have been found. The urologist said that undiscovered kidney cancer has a pretty good chance of metastasizing - once it goes there is no cure.

I'm trying to look on the good side here and I think there really is a good side. I get the TAVR which I wanted. I get that darned hernia fixed. I don't die from kidney cancer that wasn't discovered early enough. That's pretty good for the way my life has been going!

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