Every time my mom gets sent out to another specialist, they "discover" her slightly enlarged heart and odd little heartbeat. Never mind that she has x-rays going back ten years to show no increase in size and EKG's for just as long showing that the funny little beat is the just the drum she walks to.

This time, however, her new cardiologist found a leaky mitral valve. Not too much, just a little. Not enough to cause her any symptoms.

But enough for him to schedule her for a trans-thoracic ultrasound of the heart this week. Which is a fancy way of saying they are going to knock her out, put an ultrasound wand down her throat and look at the problem a little closer to the origin.

Of course, she doesn't remember half of what the docs tell her, so if I don't go with her, I get reports like, "He said he was going to do this thing. A thor-a-something. Do you know what that is?"

Sure, Mom. A thor-a-something. I do them every day.

For Pete's sake.

When I finally figured it out and she was asking ME what the doctor might want to do about the leaky mitral valve (do I LOOK like I know?), I was dredging into very dark, dank corners of my mind where I'd stored all the repressed memories from nursing school. I don't like to go there. I could only come up with two options: replace said leaky valve, or there is something that they can snake up through the femoral artery into the heart and stick some sort of widget on it. (Really, this is exactly what I told her and she believes me.)

Then she sighed. "I'm not ready for all this."

"All what?"

"All this getting old crap."

So I cheered her up by telling her that Arnold the Govenator had to have his mitral valve replaced.

Now she feels all macho about it.