my sweet husband's poor heart.

So in the short time we've been married, the Lord has really taken us on quite a journey. Brenton has lost two jobs, we are unexpectedly expecting a baby is July, and we found out that Brenton needs heart surgery this year... Here's story behind the surgery:

After I was hired at the clinic we got health insurance, so Brenton went in for a physical and the doctor pointed out that he had a heart murmur that sounded pretty serious. He has never been told this before, so the doctor referred him to a Cardiologist for more input. In December, Brenton went to see the Cardiologist and he had an EKG and an Echocardiogram done. The doctor said Brenton's mitral valve isn't working properly so it's allowing back flow of blood in his heart and therefore keeping a percentage of it from getting to the rest of his organs. The cardiologist said this could make him tire more easily, have some chest pain, and possibly headaches. Because Brenton had already noticed some of the symptoms, the doctor asked him to come back in 3 months for a re-check. Early this month, he had an appointment and the doctor said things have gotten worse, and they said he will probably need surgery to get the leaky valve repaired.

Just yesterday, we met with the surgeon who will be working on my husband's heart. The date of surgery is April 26th. He explained that the surgery is very common, but not in a 25 year old. He said it will be minimally invasive and the recovery should be a quicker process because he is so much younger than the usual patient for this kind of thing.

They will make an incision in his left side and will somehow manage to do heart surgery, (which I cannot for the life of me figure out), to repair the valve. 85% of the time, they are able to successfully repair the valve (which is the best case scenario), but if they can't we need to let them know what kind of valve they should replace his with. The surgery should take 4-4 1/2 hours and he will most likely be in the hospital for 3-5 days and can then return to work; he will still feel pain for awhile, and after about 4-6 weeks he should be back to normal.

This is still quite a shock for us, and we're both nervous, but the Lord has taken good care of us through every up and down life has thrown at us so far. We are so thankful to have friends and family who care so much. Please pray that everything goes smoothly!

P.S. on the way home we were discussing who will have it more rough in the next few months: he's thinking he'd rather go through labor. We'll let you know once July rolls around...