Just about a year ago my cardiologist told me that he wanted me to have an MRI to check out a possible problem with my aorta. No biggie, he just wanted a baseline reference to what could someday turn into a problem.

Well, a few weeks later I was in the office of the head of cardio/thoracic surgery at Cedars-Sinai in West Hollywood listening in stunned silence as he was telling me that my aorta was swollen at it’s base where it is attached to my heart and that I needed open heart surgery very soon. (A very similar situation had led to the early demise of actor John Ritter just a little over six months prior to my personal discovery.) After a scant 20 minute appointment with the doc, before I had left his office complex, I was scheduled for surgery on June 4th of last year. My wife and I went to the Farmer’s Market in the Fairfax district, had a little lunch, and talked of heart surgeries, mortality, insurance and fear.

Then I went and got a second opinion. At St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica I met the surgeon that will do my surgery when the time is right. He spent over two hours with me, explained the potential surgery in minute detail and went over all the options for valve replacement (yeah, that’s needed too!), and made sure that my wife and I were comfortable with him and with St. John’s. Then, while I was getting undressed for a full exam, he went upstairs to radiology and examined the copy of the MRI that I had brought with me on CD (the marvels of modern medicine and digital storage media!).

He came back down, gave me the exam, and then dropped the bomb. “You don’t need surgery right now. You will in the future, but not at this time.”

Can you say answer to prayer? I had been terrified of having my chest split open for about three weeks, the thought never leaving my mind for more that a few minutes. Time to exhale! Now I get checked every six months to see how much, if any, the aorta has swollen. I take meds to lower blood pressure to keep from blowing the whole thing apart in a moment of anger or frustration, and I stopped working out on weight machines and no more carrying of stuff over 25 pounds or so.

I am finally in sync with the program. I have prayed about this and realize that paralyzing fear is a denial of God’s plan for my life — if I am to die, I’ll die, if I am to suffer, then suffering it will be, if I am to recover fully, surf again, be physically active like never before, well, fantastic. But whatever is to be will be — his will, not mine. I just have to be ready, no matter what that might mean.

Now that’s a very long introduction to this post, which is about Bill Clinton and his latest surgery. Other bloggers have mentioned that Bill doesn’t look so good right now, and the speculation is that he might be more ill than is being led on. See Dr. Boyle’s Code Blue Blog for a detailed take on that.

Because I gave the benefit of the doubt to the surgeons and physicians taking care of Clinton, I almost completely dismissed the possibility that they would have MISSED this relatively common sequela of mammary artery harvesting.

I therefore had to question whether or not there was some other reason for a complicated pleural effusion, and any doctor worth his mojo would immediately think of cancer. Period.

Whether it is real, or a really intriguing fabrication, the last post at Bill Clinton Daily Diary includes the following:

The president is doing fine, although I must say, he gave us quite a scare yesterday. Well actually the doctor did. Doctor Sonett told us before the operation that it would only take about an hour or two. Mr. Clinton was in the operating room for four hours. That frightened us. The doctor told us, when they opened the president’s chest and looked inside with a small camera, they saw that the scar tissue was much bigger than they had anticipated. They had to make a bigger incision in the president’s chest to be able to cut away all the scar tissue.

So although the president is feeling fine, we are worried. To have scar tissue growing and pressing on your lungs, like the president had after a heart bypass surgery is very rare, according to the doctor. Now that we found out that there was more scar tissue than the doctors anticipated, we are very worried.

Bill Clinton does not look good. Although I am not a Clinton fan and have a lot of problems with his behavior and performance while Chief Executive of our great country, I do wish him well and have been praying for him. I guess it must be a heart-patient-bonding kinda thing. Godspeed, Bill . . . and good luck! (db)

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