Adam's Heart Valve Surgery Blog

I wasn’t given the option either, and it never occurred to me to ask.

I wish I had, when I did require blood, the precautions they went through were so extraordinary to make sure I was who needed the blood, and the blood was good and the bag intended for me that it reminded me of how serious a mistake could be.

(The precautions included amongst other things, 2-3 people repeating aloud my name/dob and hospital bar code and matching that along with the bar code of the blood with the doctor’s order and all sorts of other stuff. It reminded me of scenes from movies where the President’s order to nuke the enemy are decrypted and authenticated.)

I asked Dr. Starnes about banking blood before my surgery, but was advised that due to the severity of my defect it was not advisable. Luckily I didn’t need a transfusion, but make sure to ask your docs about it. Even if you aren’t able to bank, you can have friends or family do so for you.

Being an ICU nurse, I did my research into donating my own blood before my mechanical aortic valve replacement. The surgeon told me, “I don’t like my patients doing that because it takes too much out of them. I prefer to give them autologous blood.” (That means that the patient actually gets their own chest tube bloody drainage returned to them through a filter system. Translation: You get your own blood)
Well guess what?…….as it turned out I required 2 Units of hospital blood bank transfusions.
Although heavily sedated, I tried to listen VERY carefully to those ICU nurses when they went through all those numbers out loud before hanging the blood!
So much for planning. Who knew?

We discussed this option with our surgeon. He said we could do that, but the blood can only be kept a certain amount of time. I forget now how long, but he told us if the need arose, fresher was better. My husband was fortunate that he didn’t require any blood. Yes he received his chest tube blood back (filtered of course).

I had aortic valve replacement almost three months ago, and when I inquired about giving and storing my own blood, I was told that the Surgeon and Cardiologist don’t like the patient to give blood prior to surgery. So I didn’t have a choice either. I was given a transfusion, but I was so out of it that I don’t remember anything about it.