Mohamed's Guestbook

hi bro,thank you for taking time out to talk to me about certain stuff about heart valve surgey,yes it sound scary but what to do,today i got a letter to go and do my ecko at a hospetial in edmonton canada,on august 24,so after then they will tell me what they are going to do.but thing as this am going to get married on the 28 of agust,.can you believe that?jees! son,this thing is stressing me out real bad,sometimes i thing i should not get married because after surgey i wont be able to do nothing again,not even to sex my girl,that is what i heard anyway.but if am rong and you can enlighten me about the truth please do.hope you are doing much now bro.peace

Hi Mohamed Thanks for your entry in my guestbook. I see you mentioned having PVC's and I just wanted to say I still have pvc's, missed heart beats, double heart beats and triple heart beats and for those I am finally, after all these years, taking a Beta Blocker which greatly reduces my feeling these things. I probably had them all these years but no one ever put a name to them so I just called them palpitations. I would have thought they would have been cleared up after the surgery but the doctor says no, not always and the best news is he considers them "benign" meaning, nothing to worry about. That's the message I'm sending hoping your pvc's might not be a thing to overly worry about. Once you get two doctors who agree upon your diagnosis, hopefully you'll have those pesky things reduced to nothing to worry about as well. As a young person it is really difficult to be diagnosed with something as scary as a defective heart but I personally kept trying to see the sunnier side which is the great advances in heart valve surgeries. The odds are overwhelmingly in your favour for a full recovery. How great is that? The biggest personal reason for reading these journals and doing as much research as you can about your heart and the corrective surgeries available is to give you the courage and belief in your ability to beat this. It won't come overnight, but given time and knowledge, you too will join the calm we feel before surgery. You will also be able to enlighten and assure your loved ones you will be okay. Cheryl, Ontario

Hi Mohamed Welcome to HVJ - a great place to get personal support and answers to many of your questions. There are a few young people on the site now with one (Trevor) being two weeks out of surgery and another such as yourself (Patrick) who is still waiting for a stronger diagnosis. People with heart valve disorders are more apt to suffer from anxiety disorders as well - such as when you feel the palpitations you start to focus on the feeling and then actually have many of the same feelings of having a heart attack - pain, tingling in the left arm etc. It can be pretty frightening to be diagnosed with something like this, especially when you are so young, but as time goes on while you are waiting to get worse, you hopefully adjust to the strange feelings you are getting and learn to live with them. Regular check-ups are important though to keep your finger on whatever progression is happening in your body. I had a mitral valve repair last Oct/09 after almost 20 years of annual cardiac check-ups waiting for my valve regurgitation to ripen to the point where surgery was absolutely necessary. I suffered with regular chest pains and palpitations but somehow managed a very busy day. You have maybe had two opinions and they differ. Perhaps, if at all possible, get a third and then weigh them up. You may have been diagnosed with a problem with your heart valve but will now just have to wait it out until it gets much worse. You do not want surgery until the doctors agree the time is right. Young Patrick is in such a fix - he knows surgery will come one day but when is still undecided. A great site on the internet other than Adam's book and blog where you can get a lot of information is the Cleveland Clinic. It is one of the great hospitals in the United States that have taken the time to outline a lot of the various symptoms that accompany valve disorders. Several patients on this site have had their surgeries there. Give it a try and hopefully you'll find some of what you are looking for. Good luck. Cheryl, Ontario, Canada