Before the Surgery

     After I decided that I wanted to have the Nuss Procedure done to correct my Pectus Excavatum, I searched the area for a Doctor who has done this surgery, surprisingly there were a lot less choices than I thought.  I did find one that was in Provo which wasn't far from me at all.  His name is Dr. Mitchell and he is a Thoracic Surgeon at Intermountain Healthcare, on my first visit with him he told me that he had done the surgery a handful of times, but that I would be the oldest patient so far that he has done it on.  This didn't make me nervous at all because in my research I had found out that the majority of people with this condition are encouraged to get it fixed when they are young because your bones are still growing and the re-growth process would be much quicker and more effective.  Dr. Mitchell told me that the surgery itself has been done on much older patients than me with success so he was very confident in his ability to do the procedure on me.  He said that my bones were still very pliable (I guess meaning that they are flexible and not stiff) that I have a lot of elasticity from being very active which would make it easier for my body to heal. In my head I was thinking "Yes, working out everyday has finally paid off ha ha."  Before we could go forward though there were several tests that I had to do in order to determine if I was a good candidate.

     Before starting all of my testing, my Doctor told me that most of the time insurance companies considers this procedure as cosmetic and not medical therefore they won't cover any of it.  The only way to get them to cover the surgery is to prove that it is detrimental to your health and will cause problems if it isn't fixed.  They prove this by doing all of the tests Dr. Mitchell had me do.  One of the most important tests was called the 'Haller Index' test, this is basically where they measure the distance of the inside of your rib cage and divide it by the distance between your sternum and vertebrae.  A normal Haller index should be about 2.5, insurances will only cover this if yours is a 3.0 or higher.  Mine ended up being a 7!!!!  Can you believe it!!!  I sure couldn't, later I came to find out that my sternum was just over an inch away from my vertebrae which is insane!!

                                                         
                                     This is just an example of someone with a 3.58 (as soon as I find my picture I will post it).

     So after I completed all of my tests, I found out that my sternum was actually squishing my heart to one side and preventing my lungs from expanding all the way, which explained why I was always short of breathe even from just walking up the stairs.  Once they submitted these test, my insurance approved it and I set the date to have the procedure done.