mitral valve repair – Page 2 – commonplacebook.com

April 22nd – My Surgery Date

Post author:HFM
Post published:March 22, 2005
Post category:Health

So my surgery will be April 22nd. From what Dr. Beckman and his staff told me, it won’t be nearly as difficult a recovery as I’ve been expecting from the reading I’ve been doing. I’ll only be in the hospital about 5 days. After that I will be home, but I won’t be bedridden. I’ll be able to be up and walking around, going up and down stairs, etc. in the first week after being in the hospital. Every day after that will be an improvement. They are still recommending that I take 6 weeks off work. There are restrictions on lots of upper body exercise for quite a while while my sternum heals. And it will take me 3 months before I’m completely healed. But I won’t be bedridden, which is the impression I had.

He said that it’s a 90% chance that this will only be a valve repair, not a replacement. They will know for sure once they’re in, but he says my chance is good for the repair. If that’s the case, I won’t need to be on anti-coagulant drugs, which means that I would be able to be on the Amazing Race. No, we didn’t specifically ask about that. 🙂

He and his staff were very upbeat and positive about the surgery, and made me feel much better about it.

Dr. Daniel Beckman, M. D.

Post author:HFM
Post published:March 21, 2005
Post category:Health

Here’s some information about Dr. Beckman, who will be my heart surgeon, apparently. And here’s another bio page on him. Also, here’s some info on some rare procedure that Dr. Beckman is pioneering (not what I need done). Here’s a video [real player required] of Dr. Beckman talking about some rare procedure he’s done on a website about heart surgery. And in this IndyStar article, Dr. Beckman is being interviewed about a surgery he performed. And here’s a mention of him on Channel 6 news’s site about a surgery he performed.

And a couple of medical articles he’s authored or co-authored. One of them is titled “Pain levels experienced with activities after cardiac surgery – Pain Management” — and it’s all about how pain can get in the way of recovery. Yikes! Shouldn’t have read that. And some other paper he wrote, that makes no sense to me at all, but sounds really impressive.

I go to meet with him tomorrow morning at 8:30 to find out more about when my surgery will be and what all I will need to do to prepare for it.

Sounds like I’m going to be in good hands.

UPDATE: I was. He did great.

Transesophageal Echocardiogram Today

Post author:HFM
Post published:March 18, 2005
Post category:Health

I go in for my Transesophageal Echocardiogram (TEE Test) today at 3 at Methodist Hospital downtown. I had a big breakfast because I can’t eat 5 hours before the test, since they stick a tube down my throat to do an ultrasound from inside my body. They also have to sedate me, so Stephanie’s coming with me for the test so she can ask intelligent questions (which I’ve written down) and drive me home, since I’ll be loopy. After the test I should know a lot more about my condition, including when I would need to have surgery and what recovery will be like.

The main question I want to ask is whether I have to have open heart surgery, or if I can do some of the other heart catheterization surgeries that they’re doing for valve repair. I don’t deny I need to have something done, but if I can avoid having them crack me open like a walnut, I’d prefer that. I know Dr. Yee said that they couldn’t do the less invasive surgery because there are two valves, but I want them to go into detail about that.

I also want to know a lot about the surgeon. Like a complete biography, and how many times they’ve done the surgery. And if they’ve ever had someone die on the operating table. Because if this is someone who’s going to drastically alter the course of my life, I don’t want it to be some stranger I meet the day before and then never see them again.

It’s strange, because first I feel much better about this whole thing, but then I’ll get scared and start crying at really weird times, like right before going into a meeting at work. Which is just so graceful. I pick the strangest, most inconvenient times to fall apart.
There are some things I’ve done to prepare for all this though. Since I’ll be preoccupied and won’t be able to write regular scathing remarks about how retarded George Bush is, I took my little flight suit George Bush doll and hung him upside down and stuck pins in him. Not in anyplace vital, just his knees and elbows and stuff. That should hold him until I feel better. If we find out Bush suddenly has erectile dysfunction, you know who to blame.

Open Heart Surgery

Post author:HFM
Post published:March 15, 2005
Post category:Health

I’ve waited a bit to write about this, because I need to talk to my family and friends first. It appears that I will need to have open heart surgery to repair my defective heart valves. I’m hoping to get some other opinions and information on less invasive types of surgery, but that appears to be what I know currently.

After I had the stress echocardiogram last week, that was the analysis the cardiologist (Dr. Yee) gave me about what he is seeing. His conclusion is that my heart valves, especially my mitral valve, are failing, and eventually I will have heart failure, possibly in the next two or three years. If I go in and get the valves repaired now, I have a prognosis of living a normal, long and healthy life. The sooner I get the procedure done, the better, because it will be a repair of the valves, rather than a replacement, and my heart will not enlarge to fight the valve failure.

After I get the TEE test that I wrote about earlier, the surgeon will be able to tell me whether I need the procedure next month, or if I can wait a bit longer, like six months. But Dr. Yee is saying that I will need surgery this year.

What’s interesting is that this is the reason some of my shoes don’t fit any more. My feet are swelling because my circulation is poor. It’s also the reason I haven’t been able to lose weight easily while exercising, because I’m just not able to burn enough calories before I get tired and out of breath. So this surgery could help me lose weight.

Obviously, if this is the surgery I need to have, it’s a pretty scary thing, because they crack open my chest and put me on a heart & lungs machine to circulate my blood while they stop my heart to work on it. After the surgery, I’ll be in intensive care for several days. The recovery time is significant and for a little while after I come home I’ll need someone with me to watch me 24 hours a day.
Stephanie is already making plans to move in for a while to be with me, which worries me a lot, because this is a huge burden to fall on one person. She will need to go home twice a day to feed her cat, and I’m hoping my family will help and support her if they can. I’m also very worried about the hospital not recognizing her as my spouse and letting her visit me, and I want to make sure that they know she is the number one person I want with me, along with mom.

The following links about open heart surgery are not from my hospital, but they do cover some basic information about what the surgery and recovery are like.

On the bright side, according to this page, I’ll be able to resume fishing after 6 weeks, and firing small caliber pistols after 2 months. Woo hoo!!

This link seems to have a lot of good information: from Brigham and women’s hospital

Open Heart Surgery – What to Expect
Heart Valve Repair Surgery
Mitral Valve Repair
heart valve surgery
Mercy Hospital Open Heart Surgery

Heart Matters

Post author:HFM
Post published:February 25, 2005
Post category:Health

Heart Diagram What an echo-cardiogram is.

Also, the dangers of Endocarditis, also known as heart valve infection.

I’m googling these things because I have to go get an echo-cardiogram for the first time since I was a kid. I have a congenital heart murmur, which has apparently gotten worse in the last two years.

More specifically, I have two problems: a pulmonary stenosis, which means my pulmonary valve is too narrow and doesn’t pump blood efficiently. And I also have Mitral Valve prolapse, which means my mitral valve doesn’t close completely and allows blood to flow backwards into the previous chamber, causing a whooshing sound or “murmur.”

Apparently my murmur has gone from a grade 1 to a grade 3 on a scale of 6. It’s possible that this increase in the murmur may be a result of age, or as a result of a heart valve infection that occurred when I had my appendix rupture.

Interestingly, this site mentions as symptoms two things that I do recall having: fatigue, exhaustion, and light-headedness (may result from low cardiac output) and shortness of breath when lying down (orthopnea). Hmm.