Heart Surgery...Complete

As most of you already know, today marks 1 week since I had my valve-replacement surgery. Last Monday I got a call from my surgeon's office asking if I could come in for pre-op Wednesday & surgery on Thursday. Since I was eager just to get it over with & move on and Brad said that this week worked as well as any, I jumped in with both feet. Well, once I agreed to the Thursday operation, it turned into a Wednesday operation & I had to be in Toronto by Tuesday afternoon. Very, very quick- but less time for me to fret about it.

Tuesday night my surgeon, Dr. Tyrone David (who we heard over & over again is an outstanding surgeon), met with Brad & I and said that there is a small chance that once he gets in there, my pulmonary valve may have the same defect and he will not be able to use it to swap out my aorta valve. If that was the case what did I want him to do? I said, "You're asking me this now?!?!?" Meaning of course the night before surgery & his smart response was, "You don't want me waking you up in surgery to ask, do you?" Funny man, right?

So, I stated what I understood my options to be with the question being what was the chance of surgery for each & he filled that blank. So, if I could not have the Ross Procedure, my options were:

• Tissue valve (pig or cow), would require no medication afterwards, but surgery to replace the valve would be in 10-15 yrs
• Mechanical valve, requires taking Coumadin (anti-coagulation medication) daily for the rest of my life, but chance of surgery to replace the valve is minimal

So, I told him that I would be willing to change my daily living with the mechanical valve in the hopes that I never need to have surgery again. He said the chances of my pulmonary valve were quite small (about 5%), but apparently we should have bought a lottery ticket that day because my pulmonary valve could not be used. When he got in there he noted that the pulmonary valve was about 15% bigger than it should be & therefore should not be swapped with the aorta because it would need to be replaced within 10 years because it would not withstand the pressure.

My surgery was at noon on Wednesday and lasted for just over 3 hours. I spent the night in Cardiac Intensive Care Unit and was back on the ward by 10am Thursday morning. I don't remember too much about Wednesday or Thursday morning without someone saying something & then I can remember, but all in all things went well. By Thursday afternoon they had me up sitting in a chair & walking to the bathroom. No rest for the weary. The pain meds they had me on totally whacked me out so by Friday afternoon I wasn't taking them anymore. I switched to plain old Tylenol. It seemed to take awhile to get them out of my system, because I cannot tell you how tired I was & I think a lot of it was from those drugs.

On Saturday was the first I got to shower & that will always make you feel like a million bucks afterwards. The during, not so much as I was wrapped in Saran Wrap to keep the pacemaker wires that were still connected to me dry & my IV line. I am not a sexy picture in Saran... Having a shower also completely knocked me out, I needed a nap afterwards. I wasn't really up for visitors until the weekend ( due to my drug-induced haze) and then of course did not want to encourage too much because I was still really tired. I also didn' t want to be too tired for Sunday because Brad was bringing the kids & I wanted to be at my best for them.

The kids arrived around lunch on Sunday & I could tell that Brad had schooled them on the "rules" for being around Mom. They were both very gentle & very good. Jason of course needs more reminders than Sydney, but everything considered they both did very well. I was happy to be in real clothes for the first time because I thought that would be very important for seeing them. You just "look" sicker in a hospital gown. We spent most of the afternoon in the Atrium beside my ward with the kids as it would not be very nice for my roommate to listen to two bored, anxious kids. I also had quite a few visitors that day, so best to receive them in a beautiful outdoor-like experience than a dingy hospital room.

Not a great picture, but here is one of us in the Atrium.

They give you a heart shaped pillow to hold when getting out of bed & coughing.

On Monday, I got discharged...YEAH!!! I was home by 3:30pm & being tended to by Brad which quickly showed signs of being a problem. :) As many of you know, Bradley is very much a rules man. If it says you need to do something a certain way, that is the way that you do it (and yes, I know that I am a rule person to, but not in the same way) and he was not looking at the full picture. Our first altercation came on the stairs. He would not let me go alone & when I went up, he told me that I need to only take one step at a time (meaning that I am to plant 2 feet before going up again). Prior to this there has been many little corrections or insistence that I do something, so I calmly told him that he cannot nag at every detail. Up to our bathroom is only 6 steps, I went slowly & things were fine.

Our second altercation came with the meds. I need to take iron tablets & the pharmacy did not put instructions on the label as it is over the counter. Brad was comparing what he got from the pharmacist with my discharge summary pages. In the iron row it stated that the dosage was supposed to be 300mg & that I am to take it 3 times daily. The pill bottle for the iron stated 35mg tablets, so when Brad got my meds ready he had counted out 8 tablets!!! I told him that was wrong, there is no way I am supposed to take that much iron. I would not see the bathroom for a week (if not more!). He of course is saying that is the dosage on the sheet, I am telling him that there is no way I am to take that much iron & that he should call the pharmacist. So, after dinner he did & although the tablets are 35mg, they contain 100mg of iron & I am to take 1 tablet 3 times daily, which is what I thought. I had told Brad that there is no way he would have ever gotten me to take that much iron. He still thinks it is funny. We've gotten over that hurdle & on a nice routine now.

Mom has stayed with me this week & is keeping me company, fed, laundered & all the wonderful things that moms do for you. Yesterday she took me for a haircut (which was so badly needed) and today she took me to Costco. Too windy to walk outside, so we went for a walk indoors. Tomorrow we are off to the doctor's and Friday will be groceries. At this point, one activity is enough to wipe me out. I have a good 2 hour nap in the afternoon.

Since I wanted to keep the memory & I know some of you will be curious, Mom took a discreet picture of my incision. It is much smaller than I would have thought (thankfully), probably about 4 inches. One of the volunteers told me that he had surgery 4 years ago & that he can hardly see his scar & that makes me very hopeful. The 2 incisions below are from the chest tubes & there is still a lot of tape marks that I still need to scrub off. I focused on my arms & wrists (which are so bruised too) first as that is what people would see most.