About Me (In My Own Words)
Hello everyone. I am Lori, Jim's wife and I will be posting most all of the journaling. My husband Jim will be 53 in June. His family history includes his father's passing at the young age of 47 from a massive heart attack. Even though Jim has had very few health issues, I was able to make him an appointment with our M'Town cardiologist for a "risk assessment" evaluation when I had some concerns about his overall health (which he did not share at the time!).
Jim's health background: Jim owns a tiling and excavation business and does alot of field walking especially in his busy seasons, spring and fall, so this keeps him pretty fit. He has never had any health issues to speak of until 2 1/2 years ago when his family physician detected a grade 2 heart murmur (which I understand is fairly insignificant) and told him to come back for a checkup in 2-3 years. Although Jim didn't agree at first, I felt he was having mild shortness of breath on exertion and also felt his tired factor and energy level were not quite normal for him. I can remember when our children would try to convince him to use Sunday as a day of rest but he always had a project he wanted to work on! In the past year I began to notice that he would much rather sleep on Sundays than anything else. Nothing wrong with that and after putting in over 70 hours a week it was certainly well deserved.. but it really was not normal for him. Also, in the fall of 2010 when we took dance classes, I felt Jim was a bit more "out of shape" than what he should have been...HE did not notice anything out of the ordinary :). It concerned me enough to make an appointment. It was discovered that his murmur was much more than that now. We were told that it was not an "emergency" situation but he should look at having his valve repaired sometime in the near future. After telling us this Jim's cardiologist left the room and called a surgeon friend and had an appt made the very next day. We consulted with the surgeon and he was ready to schedule Jim for the following week! He did not schedule surgery at that time. In March we scheduled a consultation at Mayo Clinic for a second opinion regarding the timeframe. Jim underwent several tests over a 2 day period and they concurred with the previous surgeon that this was not an emergency situation however this was not an elective surgery. His surgeon recommended he wait no longer than June. Right now, with every beat, his mitral valve regurgitates 74cc back into the chamber it was coming thru. The medical guidelines catorgize the degree of regurtation as: <30 mild, 30-59 moderate, >60 severe. If ignored the leaking would progressively worsen, he would become more symptomatic and eventually would suffer heart damage. They were very pleased to find that other than the Mitral valve his heart is in perfect shape which should help his recovery. We were hoping for a minimally invasive surgery but his testing shows he also needs 2 bypasses so he must have a full sternotomy which he is not happy about (recovery is longer). So far he has been able to work the long guelling days that the spring tiling season brings. He gets home between 9 and 10pm and back at it before 7am. I honestly don't know how he is doing it and I am anxious for the tiling season to wind down. He says he feels good and does rest when needs too.
We did choose to have the surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN on Tuesday, May 24th. He has pre-op tests starting Monday morning so we will be leaving Sunday afternoon. His stay at Mayo can be anywhere from 5 - 8 days with the first 3 or 4 in ICU. His recovery is expected to be approximately 8 weeks.
More Info About Me & My Heart
More About Me
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I am from:
Haverhill, Iowa
