My buddy and his heart

[Phyllis Ridings]

My husband is trying to get his certification, and was sent home until a doctor clears him to dive. He is 6'2" 200 lbs, generally healthy two time cancer survivor (testicular and skin melanoma), and has a heart murmur. He had an episode two months ago in which he ended up in the ER due to a stressful day at the jobsite. ER doc thought he had a heat stroke or something like that, but all blood and urine tests were negative. This being so, he recommended that my husband see a heart specialist because of the murmur and that the chest XRay showed his heart to be slightly enlarged. He has a chest Xray once a year as part of his cancer followup and prior to a year ago he was having them several times a year. Wonder why no one has noticed the "slightly enlarged" heart before? David has an appointment with a specialist in a couple of weeks, I just was wondering what the chances are that he might be okay to dive. I am concerned about his health not just for diving, but forever too. He wants to get certified and I am afraid that we will not be able to.

 

[jbd]

the thread about breast cancer by PeteJ. There is a link in that thread that will help answer alot your questions.

Maybe one of the more cmputer literate folks can reply with the link.

 

[DuckDive]

Here is the discussion jbd was referring to:
http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?threadid=11970

and the link mentioned there:
http://scuba-doc.com

Good luck!

 

[jbd]

the helping hand DuckDive!!

 

[John Reinertson]

Many heart murmurs are innocent and mean nothing, so the presence of a murmur doesn't automatically mean something bad.

It means something is there that needs to be checked. Some murmurs are serious and most aren't.

I hope his is one of the less serious ones. He is right to get it checked.
John