Hi Goran,
My recovery was pretty straight forward. I was back to my old walking routing (with steep hills) 2 months post-surgery. That's also when I started driving. I had a full sternotomy and my wife was adamant that I wait the full two months, and while in the car sit in the back seat with the heart pillow over my chest. As silly as that sounds, I will say my chest never really hurt and healed exceptionally well.
The only complication I had post-surgery was something called ileus, was some gastro distress, medically referred to as ileus – something that can immediately after surgery. (I'll spare you the gory details.)
The good news: It resolved itself in a few days, with a highly restricted diet. The bad news: When they did a scan to make sure I didn't have any blockages, they found what appeared to be an abscess on my prostate. That set off all sorts of alarm bells because they don't want some infection in your body with a new heart valve, which is vulnerable for the first six weeks.
That led to a spirited debate between the urologists and infectious disease team and my surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic on whether I should have the abscess drained. The urologists and infectious disease folks thought I should have it done. (This was about four days post-surgery; you can imagine how that made me feel.) This is where having a surgeon who is also has his PhD in something dealing with blood disorders comes in EXTRA handy. He had never before seen a post-surgical prostate infection as a valve risk, which is kind of funny because he has seen pretty much everything. But he said one thing that wasn't going to happen is me having somebody fiddle around with an abscess immediately post-surgery because that has risks of its own.
Instead, he sent me home with a 6-week coarse of an oral antibiotic AND a nasty intravenous one. That meant having a PIC line snaked through my arm to my heart (not as bad as it sounds, though anybody who tried telling me that at the time got the reaction you are probably having - I FREAKED OUT!) Then, I would sit with a drip in my house for an hour and a half a shot 2x a day for 6 weeks. That meant home infusion people and a nurse once a week to check on me, take blood and clean the line. My wife was responsible for doing the actual hookup. That wasn't as bad as it might sound, but initially....SHE FREAKED OUT. (Because of the PIC line, the actual connection is just a twist on device. Pretty easy.)
In the end, I viewed it as a big annoyance because my heart recovery was going so well. A CT scan at 6 weeks showed no access.
Other than that, I was sitting at my desk working (which meant writing) most days once I got home, which was Day 11. I didn't feel a need to sit and do nothing.
(Always resonating through my head at this point was a conversation I had with Vic, who started this thread, who admonished me pre-surgery to take it easy. Sorry, Vic, doing nothing would have been worse for me. Then again, sitting at my desk, limiting my phone calls and keeping my brain active seemed to work.) It took awhile for my brain to come out of the haze. The speed of my writing, plus my energy, seemed to improve and get "back to normal" at the same rate with my exercise tolerance.
All of this, Goran, is a long-winded way of saying: No real roadblocks, thankfully. I will say that having read this forum and others for years, I have seen many many many stories of "roadblocks" that must've caused great concern by everybody involved at the time...but in the end turned out OK. See's Ira's posts here for a lesson on that. You know going in that there are risks and I think it's important to get your head around the fact that this is surgery and complications/incidental findings are real and possible. But so is walking outside (or the older we get, inside) your house with no surgery. In the end it's not always but usually "all's well that ends well." It's all part of the journey. I tried to keep a pretty upbeat attitude and a sense of humor through it all. Self-deprecating humor, in fact, was my best friend.
Cheers,
Herb
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Herb Greenberg
San Diego CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-20-2021 06:39
From: Goran A
Subject: Newly Diagnosed BAV w/moderate stenosis and dilated ascending aorta
Hi Erin,
Just saw my cardiologist and one of the things that he mentioned (and I heard this elsewhere), if you have to do surgery go to a hospital that does a lot of this type of surgeries. My cardiologist is based in New York City so he said that all the big hospitals in NYC are good. I know a lot of people go to the Cleveland Clinic and there are others around the country but I am only familiar with the once above. I personally went to the cardiologist with my wife so she can catch things that I missed and I had my questions printed out (wife laughed about it).
Herb out of curiosity how long did it take you to recover after surgery and did you hit any roadblocks?
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Goran A
Original Message:
Sent: 02-19-2021 11:04
From: Erin Feaker
Subject: Newly Diagnosed BAV w/moderate stenosis and dilated ascending aorta
Good News!!! The cardiologist office just called and had a cancellation... I go talk with him Monday! It will be good to know what I'm actually facing finally!!!
Original Message:
Sent: 2/19/2021 8:17:00 AM
From: Herb Greenberg
Subject: RE: Newly Diagnosed BAV w/moderate stenosis and dilated ascending aorta
Hi Erin,
The good news: You found this before it found you! Great job by your doctor on hearing the murmur and having you move forward. An aneurysm of your ascending aorta with a BAV is very common. For perspective, at Cleveland 5.0 is the surgical benchmark. I can tell you that it can take years to get there. But at that level, here in San Diego (I did go to Cleveland for the surgery) they upped the monitoring to 2x a year. By the time I had surgery I was 4.8-4.9, but my valve was the deciding factor. One thing I learned in my journey is that an echo/CT/MRI read by a cardiologist or radiologist can have different measurements than one read by a surgeon. They can wind up measuring things differently. At one point, I had an MRI and my cardiologist was concerned (it was 4.9). He sent me to a surgeon, whose measurement was lower. Also, since you're in Iowa, if you have the ability to travel, consider a second opinion from a surgeon at Mayo. (I started getting second opinions from a surgeon at Cleveland several years before I had surgery.) Had I not needed the surgery urgently, I would have probably also been seen there. We have relatives in Rochester who had been urging it. I did a loose consultation with one of their friends, a former cardiologist there, who had recommended a surgeon. Regardless of where you have this done, key is staying on top of it. But you already know that! Cheers.
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Herb Greenberg
San Diego CA
Original Message:
Sent: 02-15-2021 16:45
From: Erin Feaker
Subject: Newly Diagnosed BAV w/moderate stenosis and dilated ascending aorta
Hello. I was diagnosed last week with moderate stenosis, BAV and moderately dilated ascending aorta (4.8cm). Dr heard a heart murmur during routine physical. Told me to come back in a month and if still there he would order an echocardiogram. Well... it was still there. Now I have to wait two months for a cardiologist and I'm extremely nervous and scared as I have no other information other than to wait for the cardio appt!!! How do you all keep calm?
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Erin Feaker
IA
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