Bad News

I'm kinda sad today. Yesterday, I found out I have a bad heart valve. I went in to my OBGYN yesterday to followup on the ER visit from last friday. Dr Wolsey said I had a heart murmur. Which was a surprise. So he paiged the cardiologist on-call and they got me in right-away for a echocardiogram. The echocardiogram showed water on the lungs and the leaking heart valve. Dr Carter the cardiologist said the leak looked like something you would see in an old Grandma. So I'm thinking, "Great I have a grandma heart." The Doctors have talked about going on a diaretic to clear out the fluids in my lungs but that would dry up my milk so we are going to wait it out and just deal with the symptoms.
So the shortness of breath and heaviness in my throat when I lay down is from the leak. The leak wasn't caused by my pregnancy, the symptoms just brought the leak to our attention. Valve leaks are from a serious infection or your born with it. In high school when I was on the swim team, I had a stress test done, I was told the chest pain was just inflammation in my chest and to eat more salt. So all these years when I've been having chest pains, I thought it was anxiety or the costochondritis-inflammation in the cartilage. My question is why did it take 31 years for someone to hear the murmur? Weird.

I've been athletic and very active my whole life with the exception of pregnancy. Maybe this pregnancy just weakened my heart enough for the murmur to show up?

Until my next appointment with the cardiologist, in 2 weeks, I'm to work-up-to 30 minutes of walking. THIRTY MINUTES. That is PATHETIC, I'm 31 freaking years old! I did a triathlon 1 1/2 years ago, now I'm working on being able to walk 30 minutes. I guess I should be patient, take it slowly. But did I mention I'm only 31! Sorry a little sarcasm there. Now I'm done complaining I'll move on.